Pathfinder

by Julie Bertagna

  “Yes,” Mara calls up. What else should she tell?

  Candleriggs is peering down through the branches, watching the thoughts flit across Mara’s face.

  “He never forgot you, Candleriggs. He wears a white lily right next to his heart—it’s the symbol of the New World. He wants to shine its image from the moon.”

  The old woman looks up through the branches of the great oak to the vast city in the sky.

  “Well, then,” she says at last, and Mara will never forget the world of emotion in those two words. “He’s in his greatnest and I’m in mine. Each as stubborn as the other, neither of us forgetting the other. But I could never have lived in that tree, Mara. I could never enjoy its necrotten fruit.”

  “No,” says Mara.

  “Go on now. I’ll stay right here. This hill has been my home my whole life and why would I leave it now?” There is a pause, then: “Despite everything, I wish I could see him just once before our time in the world is gone.”

  “You want to go back up to New Mungo?”

  The idea of this gnarled, owl-eyed ancient in her tattered earthen clothing standing amid the gleaming chambers of the Nux is too outlandish to imagine. And could she really bear to meet Caledon again, after all that’s happened? A sudden thought strikes Mara. Maybe Candleriggs should stay here in the netherworld.

  “Candleriggs, look in the old university. You might find someone there who has searched a whole universe for the truth but only you can give him the answers he needs. I just hope he’s gotten there safely.”

  Mara’s voice breaks with fear and Candleriggs’s eyes grow even larger.

  “His name is David,” continues Mara. “My Fox. He’s Caledon’s grandson. You’re the only one who can explain his grandfather and the story of the past to him. And maybe you can help him with the future. He’s a rebel just like you. He wants to revolutionize the New World. If anyone can do it, he can. But he’s all alone, Candleriggs, and I—I can’t stay.”

  Through her own tears, Mara sees the painful splinter that’s been stuck in the old woman’s heart all these years melt like ice. The meltdown fills her eyes and streams down the deep lines on her face.

  The old woman reaches into her nest. Two things land with thumps on the mossy ground.

  “Take these, Mara Bell!” cries Candleriggs. “They look just your size. I’ve kept them clean and polished all these years, and never once wore them. Maybe I was keeping them for you.”

  Astonished, Mara picks up a pair of the most beautiful shoes she has ever seen—gleaming red leather shoes that look as good as new.

  There’s a clunk and a glug as something else lands on the grass.

  “Take that too,” calls Candleriggs. “Drink to me in your new world. But go now! Hurry!”

  Mara picks up a tall glass bottle full of a fizzing amber liquid. She can just make out the words on the bottle’s scratched metallic screw cap: Irn-Bru. With no time left for questions she zips the bottle and the shoes in her backpack.

  “We’ll tell your legend, Candleriggs,” Mara promises, and she can hardly keep her voice steady. “We’ll always remember you.”

  She is sobbing breathlessly as she runs back down the Hill of Doves to the last raft that is waiting to follow the others to the ships.

  The urchins have ransacked the museum. With their loot they flock toward the central towers where the supply ships are harbored, unsecured now behind gaping doors, while the city erupts in chaos. The urchins are bringing with them a lost world of inventions: tools, weapons, utensils, instruments, and all sorts of other objects, whatever they can carry. Swords, spears, axes, shields, fishnets, harpoons, knives, spoons, bowls, urns, flutes, horns, bugles, bassoons, drums, telescopes, compasses, gemstones, clubs, pickled brains, jewelry, engines, snowshoes, canoes, combs, baskets, animal skin mittens and hats and clothing, bits of armor, cogs, wheels, microscopes, and skulls.

  Wing slams on deck with the golden archway symbol from the ruin that crests the Hill of Doves. He’s wearing a fur-lined, jewel-encrusted royal crown from the museum. Scarwell drags aboard the life-size model of the apeman and hugs it close.

  “Treenesters!” shouts Mara, once they are safely on board one of the ships. “Round up as many refugees as you can from the warehouses. They are collecting whatever food and water supplies they can find. But hurry! The guards and police might be here any minute. Gorbals and Broomielaw, watch out on deck for any sky people.”

  Mara runs to the control cabin and looks around. In a glass case above the control panel is a handgun. She smashes the glass and pulls out the gun. Now she takes the navigation disk from its watertight package and frantically reads her own penciled instructions. Her mind has gone blank with fear and she can’t remember what she is meant to do.

  Somehow, at last, she finds the slot in the panel that she needs. She feeds in the navigation disk—and hears the sirens of the impending attack of city guards and sea police she’s been expecting. It will have taken them a little time to work out what is happening, then to amass and organize their forces. But now they have and there’s no time to lose.

  “Gorbals! Is there any sign of the others? We need to move fast!”

  Mara catches sight of the megaphone button on the control panel. She switches it on.

  “Ibrox! Molendinar! Pollock! Possil! Clyde! Parkhead! All Treenesters and refugees—return to the ships at once. We need to leave immediately!”

  “Here they are!” cries Gorbals, peering out of the control cabin window. “Oh no—and the sky people too!”

  We’ll never make it, Mara tells herself. Will any of us get out of this alive?

  She feels the ship begin to pull out of the harbor. She can hear gunfire out on deck but is terrified that the navigation disk will not take them safely out of the city gates onto the ocean, and head them due north, as Fox promised. Yet already the ship has slipped from its dark harbor in the tower. Through the control cabin window, Mara sees the open gap in the city wall where the arms of the sea have parted the disabled gates. The ship heads toward the gap.

  There’s a scream. Broomielaw! Mara grabs the gun and dashes from the control cabin. She stops dead when she sees the lurid orange sea police uniform. Pollock lies sprawled on the deck. The policeman has a gun aimed at his head. Silently, Mara raises her gun. Her trembling fingers grip the weapon. Can she aim well enough to save Pollock?

  Before she can do a thing, before the policeman knows what’s hit him, a flock of urchins rush out. The policeman doesn’t even have a chance to switch the aim of his gun. The urchins charge and he crashes against the ship’s railing. Quick as a flash the urchins grab his legs and topple him overboard.

  Pollock sits up and stares in amazement at his rescuers—the ratbashers he has always despised.

  The ship passes through the gate in the great wall and Mara stares out for the very last time at the city. At the far edge of the netherworld she can just make out the tall dark cone of the university steeple. Then it slips out of sight behind the bulk of New Mungo’s central towers and is gone.

  The moment the ship is through the city gates, Mara rushes back into the control cabin and sets the navigation disk on pause. She switches on the ship’s megaphone.

  “All refugees—please listen! This is a rescue ship!” she yells. Through the cabin window she can see an instant stir among the mass of boats in the camp around the wall. “We can take some of you. There are more ships on the way to help you!”

  The words are barely out of her mouth when she hears the beginnings of a massive rush. Mara races up on deck. The sea all around the ship is already swarming with boats and bodies as the refugees from the boat camp make a frantic dash to escape. It’s the most incredible sight. All the ship’s ropes and ladders and lifebuoys are thrown down to help, while everyone grabs hold of whatever fishing nets and lengths of tarpaulin the refugees manage to throw up. They begin to haul up on board every person they can.

  Mara searches the chaotic scene for Rowan and
Ruth, for any known face from the island, but it’s useless. It’s too dark, and there are too many boats and faces.

  The ship begins to list and sway. The tidal wave of refugees seems endless. The ship gives a sudden precarious lurch to one side.

  Mara panics. There’s no more room. They are in danger of being submerged, of sinking, and then no one will escape. She races back to the megaphone in the control cabin to shout for calm.

  “Stop, please! There’s no more room on this ship but there are other ships on the way. Stay calm and wait till they get here or we’ll sink!”

  But no one listens. The refugees are too desperate. The now-perilous scramble on board continues.

  Where are the other ships? Have they been captured? In desperation Mara watches the city gates. The sirens of the sea police are growing louder by the second. Horrified, she sees the glare of orange lights flame upon the dark ocean. A great battalion of police waterbikes emerges through the wall and starts to fire upon the refugees in the boat camp and those in the water. Mara hesitates, her heart pounding. What can she do? What about Rowan and the others from the island? What can she do to save any of them now? But there’s only one thing left to do. She resets the navigation disk. The ship powers into sudden movement. She rushes back up on deck.

  The air is full of screams as the forward surge of the ship flings refugees back into the ocean. The waves boil with the foam of desperate swimmers. Mara feels sick to her soul; she can’t bear to watch. But what else could she do? If she waited any longer the ship would have capsized or they would have been captured by the sea police. She slumps down onto the floor of the ship’s deck, trembling from head to foot.

  “Mara—look!”

  Gorbals points at the great wall and a massive cheer breaks out on deck. Relief rushes through her shaking body as she sees the white forms of the other ships begin to surge out of the city. But she cannot join in the cheering. She is counting. Only some of the ships have made it through. It’s better than none, Mara tells herself, but she puts her head in her arms, rocked by guilt and shock—because at that moment of panic, when it seemed that the rush of refugees would sink them all, she was consumed by the most powerful impulse to do whatever it took to save herself and those already on board, rather than stay to help the other refugees and risk everyone perishing.

  Just as Caledon must have done. And how far, if pushed, would she have taken that driving impulse to survive?

  “Mara, it’s all right now.”

  Gorbals helps her to her feet. Broomielaw hugs her, cradling her as if she is a baby. Little Clayslaps peers over his mother’s shoulder with huge, scared eyes, but he’s safe now, snug and secure in his papoose. Mara grips the ship’s railing and looks out.

  The world’s ocean is calm and graceful. Scattered across it, heading north, a constellation of white ships move like a ghost fleet through the darkness. A harsh cry, an exclamation of anguish and relief, breaks from her lips as she realizes that they really are free from the sky city and its netherworld, where Fox has gone to ground.

  GLORY PEEPS

  Up beyond the branches of New Mungo the stars weave a vast magic. Fox has never seen anything like it. Half-drowned, he shored up among the debris of the past, and found a whole living universe right above his head. And a little bit of earth beneath his feet.

  The world’s wind touches his face. The eternal light of the universe shines in his eyes. All is well, after all. The universe is doing just fine, busy spinning its own dreams into infinity. It doesn’t need him, doesn’t need anyone at all. It doesn’t matter to the universe whether a single human being exists on Earth or not.

  And yet—if he were not here the universe would be one pot of dreams poorer, one immeasurable jot of human energy weaker. The universe might not need Fox but it’s good all the same that he’s here, a child of the world, no more or less than a tree or a star.

  Now I’m skin and bone and dirt, he laughs. Now I’m real!

  From a smashed window in the steeple tower of the university, Fox watches his city erupt. When the very last of the white ships heads out of the city gates he feels a wrench inside that’s as strong as the pull of Earth or ocean. Mara is gone. And he is left here alone, under the great black steeple that looms high into the darkness—the place where he will begin his revolution of the New World.

  Down here is the truth of the past and the old world that drowned. It’s here that a boy named Cal dreamed himself out of a nightmare to become the Grand Father of All the New World. And the loneliest man on Earth.

  Except one, thinks Fox, as he stands all alone in the thick, empty darkness of the netherworld.

  A soft, quivery light appears out of the heart of the dark. It moves across the black water toward the university tower. Nervously, Fox watches its slow approach. The fluttery light draws nearer, nearer still, until it’s close enough for Fox to see that it is a lantern carried on a raft. Now, at the foot of the tower, the lantern glow reveals the one who carries it—an ancient woman, as gnarled as a tree, with the eyes of an owl and a face as moon-pale as a lily.

  THE STONE-TELLING

  SHALL BE

  Gorbals rushes up to Mara and points toward an old man who lies in a broken heap among the shadows at the edge of the deck. He looks bent and worn from his sentence of hard slave labor.

  “He says he knows you,” says Gorbals. “You lived on the same island.”

  The old man stares at her and raises his hand in greeting. Mara frowns, seeing nothing that she recognizes in the shaved head and achingly thin body. But it’s hard to see in the dark. She tries to think which of the islanders it might be.

  “I don’t know him at all. We left all the old people on the island,” Mara murmurs. She sees Gorbals’s shocked face. “I know, it was a terrible thing and I fought against it. But now I think the old ones must have felt like Candleriggs—they couldn’t bear to leave the place they had lived in all their lives.”

  The old man now struggles to his feet and makes his way toward her with slow, agonized steps. And it’s only when he draws near to the moth lanterns and their glow lights up his eyes—eyes as blue as the forget-me-not sky of a summer night on Wing—that Mara knows who it is.

  “Rowan!”

  She rushes over, shocked and horrified at the terrible change in him.

  “Oh, Rowan, I thought you must be dead!”

  “Just about, but not quite.” A frail smile creases Rowan’s thin, begrimed face. He grabs hold of her. “Mara, is this true? People are saying that you did this—that you rescued us all.”

  He shakes his head in wonder.

  “Not just me,” Mara says brokenly. “Someone helped me. Someone I had to leave behind.”

  And now she begins to cry as she has never cried before.

  Rowan clasps her to him, his bony frame shaking with exhaustion and emotion. He holds her until she is calm enough to try to speak again.

  “What about your parents?” whispers Mara. “What about Ruth and Quinn and all the others from the island?”

  “Gail’s death …” he sighs, struggling for words. “That killed all hope in my parents, then a wave of sickness spread through the camp—diseased drinking water this time—and they had no strength left to fight it. Once they were dead, I didn’t care what happened to me. The Pickers took me up into the city to work on the sea bridge. But I saw Ruth and Quinn and some of the others before I was taken—they were so kind, they tried to help us when we fell ill. They were devastated when Mom and Dad died. I don’t know what happened to them. Ruth had her baby just before I was taken. I hope they all survived.”

  “They might have escaped. They might be on another ship,” says Mara, desperate to believe that they are.

  “Maybe,” says Rowan, but he’s full of grief, and changes the subject.

  “I can’t believe I’m here. Mara, what happened to you? Where did you go? How did you do all this?”

  “Rowan, when I tell you, you’ll never believe me. What happened
is like one of those legends in the books you used to read on the island. I’ll tell you everything once you’ve had food and rest, because it’s such a long, strange tale. I’m going to tell everyone so that one day, when we find land, the story will live on in the world and the people who come after us will know how they came to be free. And maybe, somehow, our story will help them to be strong in their lives,” she says, knowing how the stories of Granny Mary and Thenew and Candleriggs helped her.

  Mara’s eyes burn with tears as she thinks of Fox but she blinks them back and tries to smile at her friends.

  “Here you are, Treenesters—out in the world for the first time ever!” she cries. “Well, what do you think of it?”

  “I’m so happy I can’t think,” Gorbals bursts out. “I’m just being in the world. I can’t believe all this has really happened. It’s the end of the Treenesters’ story but the beginning of a new one.”

  He steps forward to lean on the railing and look out at the world—and trips over the ship’s anchor.

  Bad as she feels, Mara can’t help laughing. Some things don’t change. The whole world might end and Gorbals would still trip over his feet.

  “Look!” Broomielaw exclaims. “Mara, look! It’s the fish with the ring.”

  She points at the anchor that Gorbals has just tripped over. The metal is molded into the shape of a fish with a split tail at the end. The large ring in its mouth holds the anchor rope.

  “So it is.” Mara stares in surprise. “But the rest didn’t happen. The stone-telling didn’t come together, after all. What was your rhyme?”

  “The fish with the ring

  The bell and the bird and the tree.

  When these all come together

  Then the stone-telling shall be.”

  The Treenesters chant it for her. Wing, with his little sparrow friend back upon his shoulder, sits among a cluster of urchins nearby. They all cock their heads, like birds, to listen. Mara looks back at New Mungo and hopes with all her heart that Fox is safe and alive in the netherworld, that Candleriggs will find him. The sky city is no more than a faint gleam in the night sky, the furious clangor of its alarms just the gentlest peal on the sea wind.