by Philip Reeve
“What did She say to you, child?” pleaded Orca Mo.
Fever bowed her head. “She said that it was she who had made my flying machine fall, and that she was letting me live so that I could come to you with her message.”
“And what is Her message?”
“That people are not meant to fly. That is one of the reasons why she smote the Ancients with, um, smite-y things. Because of all their flying machines, dirtying the sky… Only the Goddess may make flying things.”
She broke off short, sure that she’d gone too far. Surely no one could believe this bilge? But Orca Mo’s eyes shone, filling like tide-pools, spilling salt water down her cheeks. “Oh yes!” she said, taking Fever’s hands in hers. “Oh yes! It makes such sense!”
“Does it?”
“Of course! The sky is Her realm too, you see. Science has taught us that the air is mostly made of water, so what is the sky but another sort of sea?”
“Well, that’s not quite…”
“And does not even the moon herself obey the pull of the Sea’s tides?”
“No, it’s the other way round,” Fever started to explain.
Orca Mo did not notice. “Pray with me, child,” she said, pulling Fever off the pew, shoving her down on to the sea-worn planking of the temple floor, kneeling there beside her. “We must give thanks to our Mother Below for this new revelation. And then we shall go forth into the city, and make sure that all of Mayda knows Her will.”
But all Fever could think of was the last look that Arlo had given her, that empty look of shock and loathing. He’d been betrayed by Weasel, and betrayed by Thirza Blaizey, and now he had been betrayed by Fever Crumb.
30
WESTERING
wo days later the Lyceum rolled back into Mayda, still garlanded with flowers from the fiesta at Meriam. The flowers were fading now, but Ruan and Fern had fresh bright memories of their adventure which they were eager to tell Fever about. The dolphins in the harbour! The great walls of Meriam, high as high! The fountains they had played in by the light of the festival fires! The kindness with which the caliph had received them! The way Ruan had worked all the lights and stage-effects himself, without ever once burning the poor old barge to flinders, which Fergus Bucket had said he was sure to do!
But they had no chance to tell Fever any of it, because she had news of her own. That strange warship anchored in the outer basin had come from London just to find her. These people were her parents; this lady, tall and kind and beautiful, was her mother, this shy, quiet gentleman her father. And what would that mean? What would happen now?
When she told them, Fern started to sniffle, and Ruan couldn’t even look at her; he had to go away and walk along the harbourside by himself. There was no one he could talk to about what he felt. How can you explain that you have a broken heart when you are only ten?
But the show must go on; if he had learned anything in his two years with the Persimmons, it was that. So he went back to the Lyceum, back down into the crawl space under the stage that had become his now. He was determined to let Fever see how well he could work her lights.
That evening, back on the waste ground behind the harbour, the tale of Niall Strong-Arm unfolded once more in the summer twilight, and this time Fever watched it from the audience, seated in the front row between her mother and father. She was worried at first that they might not approve of this make-believe world she had spent the past two years in, but Wavey laughed at all the jokes and applauded at the end of every scene, while Dr Crumb, who had never seen a play before, seemed quite fascinated.
Fever was fascinated too. She had never really understood before the strange alchemy that AP and his company could work. Now, although she knew the script by heart, she found herself moved by the improbable story; by the love of Selene for her astro-knight; by AP’s voice, which served up slabs of poetry as rich and dark as fruit cake; by Laura Persimmon’s autumn beauty; Lillibet’s ballet; Max and Dymphna’s clowning; by the excitement of the fights and battles, and most of all by the skilful way Ruan worked the lighting and effects, and by little Fern. AP had padded out the handmaiden’s role with extra lines, and Fever realized that Fern must have been watching and learning during all her time aboard the Lyceum, for she could steal a scene as slyly as Cosmo Lightely and ride a joke as well as Dymphna.
And she knew that that would make it both harder and easier for her when the play ended and she had to go to AP and tell him what she had already told the children: that she would not be travelling onward with the Lyceum. Wavey and Dr Crumb had already decided what would happen to her, and Fever had not had the strength to argue. She would be leaving with them on the morning tide, going back north aboard the Supercollider. And Fern and Ruan would not be going with her. It would not be fair, she thought, to take them from this summer country back to the snows and sloughs and smokes of London. They would miss her for a little while, she thought. But she had never really been a parent to them, or even a proper guardian; she had just been the person who delivered them to their new home, the Lyceum, and there aboard the Lyceum she must leave them, among all these good people whom they loved, and who loved them better than Fever had ever managed to.
It might have been different if Arlo had been there with her. He might have given her the strength to stand up to Wavey and Dr Crumb. She might have stayed on with him in Mayda. Or taken him with her aboard the Lyceum and let him be drawn into AP’s messy, cheerful family. But Arlo had gone off alone as soon as the Supercollider docked, refusing to even look at her. Gone back to Casas Elevado, Fever guessed.
And what would he do there? What could he do, with the Goshawk gone and the common folk of Mayda so stirred up against the idea of flight that they were burning even their children’s kites on the bonfires in the Quadrado Del Mar?
Dr Teal, rescued from Thursday Island by the Supercollider’s launch, had taken Fever aside when he saw those fires and said, “I have to admit, Miss Crumb, you’ve put the whole Suppression Office to shame! You’ve got the Sea Goddess to do our job for us. If this spreads – and I mean to make sure that it does – you’ll have set back the development of flying machines by a generation!”
From the smile he wore while he said it, she gathered that she was meant to feel good about that.
The play reached its end. The audience stood up, applauding as the actors formed a line along the stage-front, no longer characters out of the lost past but just themselves again, holding hands, bowing, waving. “Extraordinary!” Dr Crumb was saying. “I had no idea…!” AP brought Fern centre stage and requested a special round of applause “for young Fern Solent, who will one day be the brightest star of Bargetown”. And then the division between actors and audience dissolved and there was talk and laughter and drink and music, with Fever in the midst of it somewhere, being hugged by Dymphna and Lillibet and Cosmo. Ruan was showing Dr Crumb the backdrops he had helped to paint and explaining to him about perspective. Dymphna was having a long and serious conversation with Jonathan Hazell. Wavey was flirting with AP, telling him, “You must come to London soon! If not, London must come to you!”
Fever, all unnoticed, walked away. Through the throng and racket of Bargetown she went, and then along the quays to the Southern Stair. Although it was so late, the light still lingered in the western sky, and above the crags of the eastern wall a vast and sulphur-yellow moon had risen.
All the way to Casas Elevado she was working out in her head what she would say to Arlo. I had to do it; Dr Teal and my mother would have found a way to kill you otherwise. What I told Orca Mo will be a nine-days wonder. It probably won’t spread much beyond Mayda. You’ll be able to go to another city and start working again. One day people will fly…
Or should she suggest that Arlo come back to London with her, and offer his services to the Engineers? But Arlo’s fragile, beautiful machines had nothing in common with the huge, crude, all-devouring thing the Engineers were building. Like Fern and Ruan and all the good things in her life
he belonged in sunlight, not in London.
And when she reached his house she found that she was too late anyway. His gate was not just open, it had been torn from its hinges. Angry feet had tramped a broad path through his garden. His house stood smashed and vandalized at the bottom of its rails, its windows shattered, its walls daubed with religious symbols; slogans; threats. The followers of the Mãe Abaixo had not forgotten Arlo Thursday and his gliders. When they had finished burning all their kites they had come for him.
Fever wandered through the ruined, moonlit rooms. In the bedroom, the picture of her grandfather and Arlo’s had been torn down, slashed and trampled until the two men’s faces were unrecognizable. Arlo’s clothes had been ripped and flung about. Books had been torn up, the pages lying in thick drifts on the floors. The people who had done it probably couldn’t read, and they’d imagined that these poems and stories were instructions for building godless flying machines.
Fever began to cry. She had never really done it before, although she had sometimes felt like it. She’d always been able to control herself till now. But suddenly she was sobbing. Sitting down in the wreckage of the kitchen where she had sipped Arlo’s coffee and listened to Arlo’s plans, she let the salt tears flow out of her.
When there were no more she went outside. Wavey was waiting for her in the day-bright moonlight on the veranda. She looked at Fever’s tear-stained face and said, “Surely, Fever, you knew this would happen? You of all people ought to know a bit about the madness of crowds.”
“What have they done with him?” asked Fever, feeling angry at herself because she knew Wavey must have heard her sobbing and mewling in the kitchen.
“Oh, Arlo wasn’t here,” said Wavey. “I seem to remember promising you that he wouldn’t be harmed. I think Dr Teal would have liked to interpret that as meaning that we would not harm him, and letting the Maydans do the deed for us. But that would have been cheating, don’t you think? So I made sure Arlo went aboard his cutter yesterday night, and stayed there. Some of our people sailed it for him from Thursday Island. It’s moored in the outer basin.”
“What will he do?”
“Leave Mayda, I imagine. After that, who cares? The Suppression Office will keep an eye on him, of course, but I doubt he’ll ever get another of his flying machines off the ground, not with so much feeling against it.”
She sighed, sensing Fever’s unhappiness, searching for some way to comfort her. “Honestly, Fever, it’s not your fault. Forget it. What are flying machines anyway? Just toys for children. Wait until you see the new London; see the power of it, I mean… We’ll walk together through the Engine District, you and I. Those immense turbines, like the mills of God… You’ll soon forget your silly aëroplanes…”
She smiled, and reached out to rearrange Fever’s hair. “He is a handsome boy, Fever. But he is not for you.”
Fever pushed her hand away and ran, back through the garden, along Casas Elevado, down a narrow stair to Rua Cĩrculo. A restaurant was starting to descend, and Fever leaped aboard. Waiters came to show her to a table but she waved them away, hurrying through the building, the diners all turning in their seats to stare at her. Some reached out to touch her as she passed, for luck. That’s the girl – the girl who flew – the girl the Goddess spoke to…
She ignored them, ran out on to the veranda at the far end; potted palms and bougainvillea, Chinese lanterns swaying in the breeze, the static buildings of the cliff side sliding by on either side. Below her, moonlight sprawled silvery across the waters of the harbour. In the outer basin a cutter had raised its sail.
She vaulted up on to the rail that ran around the veranda and balanced there, waiting for the restaurant to arrive at its lower buffers. The manager appeared behind her, pleading with her to get down, telling her that she was endangering herself and disturbing the diners. But Fever didn’t care about the diners, and this didn’t feel like danger, not compared to some of the things she’d done lately. When the buffers were still six feet away she sprang across the narrowing gap, landed hard and ran, leaving the watchers on the veranda behind her to shake their heads and tell each other that her encounter with the Mãe Abaixo had deranged her wits.
“Arlo!” she shouted, haring through the shadowed canyons between the warehouses.
The Jenny Haniver’s pale sail slid across a slit of moonlit water between two walls. Fever ran on, out on to the harbourside. It wasn’t rational, but she needed to talk to Arlo before he left, to stop him leaving if she could. If she could only get his forgiveness, then at least she would have salvaged something…
But the Jenny Haniver was making for the harbour mouth, and as she gathered speed and moved out into the wind-ruffled water beyond, a ghost-white storm of angels detached themselves from the bridges and cliffs and rooftops of the city and went soaring after her, surrounding her, wheeling around her masthead, flying low over her straight silver wake like gulls behind a trawler.
Fever ran and ran, right out to the uttermost end of Mayda’s long mole. She could see Arlo at the cutter’s helm, his injured arm bound up in the white sling the Supercollider’s surgeon had given him. “Arlo!” she shouted.
He did not look round, and Fever had no way of knowing if he was ignoring her or if he simply hadn’t heard. She thought at first that he must be heading back to the Ragged Isles, but as the cutter cleared the harbour mouth it turned due west.
Where was he going? Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he just wanted the solitude of the open ocean. Maybe he wanted to die out there. It may be that the Gulfs will wash him down… thought Fever, half-recalling some fragment of verse from one of AP’s poetry recitations. It may be he will touch the Blessed Isles… And it may be he was going where the angels had gone of old; letting their atlas guide him to whatever forgotten coastlines lay beyond the sea’s blue edge. And the angels were going with him. She could see skeins of them lifting from their eyries on the Ragged Isles, blowing like white banners across the sea.
“Arlo!” she screamed, standing at the end of the harbour wall in the moonlight, the sealight, in the spray of the steep salt waves. “Take me with you! Aa-a-a-r-lo!”
But the cutter just kept on getting smaller, shrinking into the huge emptiness of night and sea and sky, taking Arlo and the mysteries of flight away from her, no more than a flash of white sail now, smaller than a handkerchief, smaller than a pillow-feather, and after a while, when even her sharp Scriven eyes could not tell the Jenny Haniver from the whitecaps on the waves, Fever knew that she would never see him again.
She turned away and started walking slowly back along the harbourside towards the lights of the city and the black, waiting bulk of the Supercollider. There was nowhere for her to go now except home.
WITH THANKS…
… to my editors, Marion Lloyd and Alice Swan; to Kjartan Poskitt, my Chief Scientific Advisor; to the Moorland Merrymakers and particularly Dave Booty, who told me about the scary home-made lighting-rigs of yesteryear. To Eamon O’Donoghue for the illuminated capital letters. And to David Wyatt, whose drawings of the people and places in the World of Mortal Engines have done so much to help bring it to life.
FEVER
CRUMB
Fever’s adventures begin in the brilliant Fever Crumb.
Don’t miss it!
A handwritten label on a tiny wrist.
Thousand of years from now a baby is abandoned in the ruins of London. Rescued by some eccentric Engineers, Fever Crumb grows up unaware that she is the keeper of an explosive secret. Are the mysterious powers she possesses the key that will save London from a new and terrible enemy?
There are four more great books, set centuries after A Web of Air.
Mortal Engines
Predator’s Gold
Infernal Devices
A Darkling Plain
Copyright
Scholastic Children’s Books
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First published by Scholastic Ltd, 2010
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2011
eISBN 978-1-407-12916-7
Text copyright © Philip Reeve, 2010
Cover artwork © David Wyatt, 2010
The right of Philip Reeve to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him.
A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
A map of MAYDA at the World’s End
About the Author
By Philip Reeve
Title Page
Dedication
1 THURSDAY’S CHILD