The Sky Warden and the Sun

by Sean Williams

  The buggy moved in slow motion, rocking her gently as though floating on the sea. Sal was talking again. The words meant nothing. She couldn’t sleep, but she dreamed that they had been travelling forever on a giant, bone-white ship across a desert sea. The water ran out before they got where they were going, though, and they were marooned in the middle of nowhere. The sun baked the soil rock hard, locking the ship tight in the ground. They couldn’t move. She jumped out of the boat and tried to dig it free, cursing all the while, determined not to be held up a moment longer. She was late, and getting later with every minute.

  The fat, blistering sun turned ponderously across the sky and descended to the opposite horizon, which for some reason was as irregular as the teeth in an ancient skull. In the darkness she could hear the wind whistling through the ravine, and felt again the awful moment of panic as the buggy had leapt forward with her sprawled across it. The crack of bone between metal and concrete snapped her back to full consciousness with a start.

  “Are you all right?”

  Shilly looked around, confused. It was night, and they had stopped. The buggy was off the track, sheltered behind a ruined masonry wall. The horizon on the other side matched the one in her dream perfectly.

  When had the world gone from being flat to rugged again? She couldn’t remember. But she wasn’t still dreaming; she was sure of it. Although her head was fuzzy, her thoughts were clear.

  “Just a nightmare,” the voice decided. She looked up at its source. Sal was leaning over her, a half-smile making light of his concern. She nodded, knowing that the memories of the ravine would be with her forever, along with the scars. No matter what else she forgot in the long, arduous journey, that would never fade.

  “Don’t let me take any more of those tablets,” she said. “I feel terrible.”

  “How’s your leg?”

  “Don’t ask. Do I have to stay up here?” She was still slumped in the makeshift bed on the back of the buggy. Her back was aching.

  “I’ll get you down later. First I want to make a fire and put some food on. You need to eat to get better.”

  “Is that why we stopped?”

  “No. The road is too bad to drive on at night. We got bogged once already.”

  She frowned, a vague memory of him cursing the spinning wheels drifting out of the vagueness then sinking back down again. With the memory came more images that clashed with the desert surrounding Yor. Images of crumbling riverbanks, flat boulders and shattered rock, through and over which the track wound like a snake.

  “Where are we?”

  “About fifty kilometres into the Broken Lands. We made good time until the last stretch. It’s even rougher than I remember.” He clambered down off the tray and began to unpack supplies. “If you want to do something, you can peel these.”

  He handed her a knife and some wizened, yellow, root vegetables. She took them, relieved that she wouldn’t have to sit and watch him do everything. They were supposed to be working as a team; at some point she would have to start fulfilling her end of the deal.

  When a simple stew was boiling in the pot, he helped her hop awkwardly off the tray and onto the ground. The shock of landing reverberated through her broken leg and she bit her lip to avoid crying out. He talked with unnatural animation about the wildlife he’d seen on the road while she relieved herself, leaning on him for support and not hearing a word he was saying until she was relatively comfortable by the fire. The smell of cooking was a great improvement on the pungent odour of the countryside; whatever it was, the odour was stronger than it had been at Yor and nagged at her like an itch.

  They were silent as they ate their meal. She could feel the reticence of the early stages of their journey creeping back over her again, but this time she fought it. They needed to talk to each other if they were going to keep travelling together, and most of what she needed to say boiled down to one phrase, one she had always found difficult to say.

  It finally came out when dinner was over and the fire was winding down. They were sitting opposite each other. His eyes reflected the orange light back at her.

  “I want to say thank you, Sal,” she said.

  He looked startled. “What for?”

  “You know.” The words came only awkwardly. “For saving my life.”

  “You saved mine too.”

  “That was just a reflex. I didn’t think about it. You went to a lot of trouble and took a great deal of risk to—”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Shilly. You shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just…”

  “It’s what, Sal?”

  “Let’s just say we’re even. We saved each other. That’s enough, isn’t it?” He shifted restlessly. “I mean, I crashed the buggy, I dragged you away from Fundelry, I got you into trouble with the Sky Wardens—”

  “And we’re trying to fix all that, together. You didn’t have to take me with you. Thanks for giving me a chance.”

  “Neither of us really has a choice,” he said. “We’re sort of stuck with each other.”

  “True. So it would be stupid to fight about who owes whom for what. We should just be grateful in general.”

  “I agree,” he said. “Maybe this is what Lodo meant when he said we were ‘destined.’ Destined to help each other through this, as much as we can.”

  She thought about that, as she’d thought about it many times during the previous weeks. “I don’t know,” she eventually said. “It could be.”

  He nodded. “I can’t see how he could know about anything else. We’re just kids, really. The future could hold anything.”

  Shilly studied him in the fading firelight and wondered who he was trying to reassure the most: himself, or her. They were both still young, it was true, but they were on their own and were being forced to grow up fast. She could see it in him, at times, and on his face: the man he would one day become. She didn’t know if he could see similar changes in her: she was older, so the difference wouldn’t be so obvious. His voice hadn’t broken yet. He had further to catch up.

  He was right, though. Anything could happen. But that wasn’t what she’d wanted to talk about. Far from it. She could feel herself flushing with embarrassment in the darkness and clutched at anything to change the subject.

  “How long until we reach the Desert Ports?”

  “A week, maybe two.” He sounded relieved at the shift too. “It depends on how we get on at the Lookout and Nesh. Even if there’s no one waiting for us there, we’ll still have to talk our way through.”

  “Do you know how we’re going to do that?”

  “Not yet.” He surprised them both with a sudden yawn. “Sorry,” he said, stretching out and lying back on the sleeping bag with his hands beneath his head. “Don’t worry, Shilly. I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

  She nodded because she had to believe him. This was his territory, not hers. What little she knew about the borderlands came from Mrs Milka, Fundelry’s only Schoolteacher, and she didn’t trust a lot of that. The official line was that the Stone Mages of the Interior and the Sky Wardens of the Strand co-existed in harmony, having very little in common except a small amount of trade. Shilly was sure it wasn’t so simple, or innocent. Sal himself was proof of that, if she needed any: a child born out of a mixed, political union who had spent most of his life between both countries, in neither one nor the other. He couldn’t be the only one.

  Maybe that was where the inhabitants of Yor fitted in. If someone didn’t belong in either the Strand or the Interior, but didn’t want to travel, there might be few places left to live. Even an isolated, derelict town would be better than nothing—and might even give someone a sense of purpose. Someone like Engenius Lutz could be important where medical help was hard to find.

  She felt vaguely sorry, then, for the man who had healed her. He had saved her leg at least, if not her life. It didn’t seem fair to her that
anyone should be forced out into the fringes: Lutz, Sal, or her. But perhaps there was a reason she knew nothing about.

  She lay back to watch the stars. They were brilliantly depthless, perfect for taking her mind off her worries and the pain in her leg, and her uncertain memories of all the things waiting for her in the Interior: the Advisory Synod, the Judges, the Nine Stars. At least one thing was behind her, even if her memories of that were even more uncertain and hazy. She wouldn’t be unhappy if she never saw Yor again.

  “Have you ever—?” she started to say, but stopped upon seeing that Sal was asleep. She went back to looking at the stars and wondering at the strange, angular nature of the northern horizon, determined to keep watch while he rested. Without taking one of Lutz’s potent little pills, she doubted she would sleep anyway. She had had far too much of it lately, enough for a lifetime.

  So it came as a surprise, deep in the night, to be startled awake by the sound of another vehicle chugging toward them along the track, glimmers of light from its headlamps shining around the masonry they were sheltering behind. It was even more of a shock to hear it slow as it grew near. Shilly automatically tried to sit up, but every nerve in her leg cried out in protest.

  The last vestiges of sleep vanished when she heard the vehicle rattle to a halt and two men speak softly over the chugging of the motor.

  remembered in a flash Lutz’s promise to deflect any pursuit if he could, and his glance at the cheerless group of villagers further along Yor’s only road. There was only one conclusion she could come to.

  “Sal!” she hissed. “Sal, wake up! Someone’s here! They’ve found us!”

  Chapter 3

  Where Cities Die

  Sal was on his feet without thinking. The urgency in Shilly’s voice bypassed his brain and spoke directly to his limbs. He remembered to skirt the remains of the fire and was careful of her leg when he reached her, but it was a moment or two before he actually understood what was going on.

  An alcohol engine chugged nearby. Light splashed around the wall hiding the buggy from view of the road. Another car! But no one travelled the Broken Lands at night, not unless it was an emergency—and if this was an emergency, why had they stopped?

  “What do we do now?” Shilly whispered to him. Her eyes were wide and white—the only details in her dark face he could make out.

  He was spared a vague answer by the grumble of the engine climbing up a notch in pitch, then a crunch of gears engaging. With a growl, the car began to move away from them, bouncing over the uneven surface of the track leading away from Yor, the glow of its headlights gradually fading away.

  He had barely begun to relax when he heard footsteps approaching them. Shilly’s hand clutched his arm and every muscle in his body unconsciously tensed to spring.

  “Sal?” called a voice. “Shilly? Are you there?”

  Sal froze at the sound of their real names, thinking that there was only one person who knew them who could have caught up in the night. A patch of black stepped around the deeper blackness of the wall and a torch snapped on, blinding him.

  “I thought so,” said the voice behind the light, and this time Sal recognised it. “It may be dark, but a blind dingo couldn’t miss your tracks.”

  It was Engenius Lutz, a big, shadowy figure behind the glare of his torch—the most unlikely person Sal could have thought of to turn up just then. It seemed only an hour or two ago that they had left him behind in Yor.

  “Where did you learn our names?” Sal asked, standing up.

  “What are you doing here?” Shilly put in.

  The surgeon came closer to the remains of the fire and averted the light. In his other hand he clutched his black leather bag and a small khaki rucksack. He looked crumpled and weary. The shadows pooled in the recesses of his earthen face.

  “Just before sunset,” he said, “two people came to town: a boy slightly older than you two, and a man. The man was as dark as a snake’s shadow and had the look of someone getting close to something—something he wanted very badly. He sent the boy to find them a room for the night. Then he started asking questions.”

  Sal knew what was coming. “Did he give a name?”

  “Shom Behenna.”

  “He’s a Sky Warden. Did he tell you that?”

  “Eventually, yes—and if you thought you made a stir, that was nothing compared to him. I don’t think we’ve seen a Warden in Yor for twenty-five years.”

  Sal’s head felt light. “I knew it. They’ve been following us. I dreamed about them. Behenna—” He was about to say that the Sky Warden had helped him save Shilly’s life, but that would have revealed too much about them. The less Lutz knew about Sal’s relationship with the Change, the better. He would have to explain his reticence to Shilly later.

  “His young companion’s name is Tait,” Lutz went on. “He says he knows you, princess. He described you perfectly.”

  Shilly’s eyes widened further in the reflected light of the torch. “Tait? But—”

  “What did Behenna say, exactly?” Sal asked the surgeon.

  “He wanted to know if anyone had seen you. The names he used were different to the ones you had given me, and he didn’t say why he wanted to know where you were, but the descriptions matched. I knew immediately he was the one you were running from. I can see why, too, Sky Warden or not. He was eager when he heard how close he was, and he became angry when told no one would take him anywhere at night. He could practically smell you, and his hunger was terrible to see.” Lutz shook his head. “I said nothing, of course. I excused myself and pretended to be out when he came knocking on my door. As soon as the sun was fully set, I arranged for a lift. There are some who will drive this road at night, but you have to have a good reason. Or apply sufficient leverage.”

  A town’s only doctor would know enough to get anything he wanted, Sal guessed. A Sky Warden could apply pressure too. Behenna would be on the road first thing the next morning.

  “How were they travelling?” he asked.

  “On horseback. It’s rare we see such beasts up here, and these had been run into the ground. They had money for stables and new mounts, but they won’t find anything of that quality in Yor. When they travel again, it will be by camel or motor vehicle, or on foot.”

  Sal thought furiously. That meant Behenna and Tait must have ridden all the way from Fundelry, buying fresh horses every chance they could. Not limited to tracks and rough fields, they would have been able to travel on good roads and enjoy the finest hostels. That explained how they had caught up so quickly.

  How they had worked out which way to go was a different question. Maybe it was simply an educated guess that had paid off. Behenna had known Sal’s history and had assumed that he would head north. While the tiny tap-taps might not pin Sal down with any precision, the one instance of genuine contact by the ravine must have done so. Once Behenna had known exactly where Sal was, he would have known that Sal’s next stop was most likely to be Yor. From then on, it had just been a matter of speed. If they had stayed one more night in Yor, as Lutz had wanted, that would have been the end of their freedom.

  It made sense. The trouble was, Sal didn’t know what he could do about it.

  Shilly was the one who broke the silence.

  “So why are you here?” she asked Lutz.

  The big man put down his khaki rucksack and sat on it. “I came to warn you. You’ll have only a night’s head start, and the Sky Warden will be guided by people who know the road well. You won’t be able to outrun them, not with this leg to care for, and I could not allow you to risk a patient’s health by trying.”

  “You couldn’t allow it?”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, princess. I am not here to tell you what to do! I only want to help you.”

  “Your lift should have stayed, then,” said Sal. “That way, Shilly could have gone back with you while I went ahead. She could have waited in Yor like I originally planned.”

  Shilly was shaking her head befor
e he finished the sentence, but it was Lutz who killed that argument.

  “It wouldn’t work. Your pursuer was asking about both of you, remember. Not just you, Sal. She wouldn’t be safe if you left her behind.”

  So it was official, Sal thought. Shilly was a fugitive, too. They really were stuck in it together, whether they liked it or not.

  In the reflected light of the torch, her expression was hard to read.

  “What do you suggest we do, then?” she said. “You wouldn’t have come all the way out here only to be caught with us.”

  “Indeed.” The surgeon’s smile lit up his bulbous, bearded face with a mixture of relief and something oddly like triumph. “If you take the road, you will be too easy to find. I’m proof of that: there is so little wheeled traffic through here that your tracks stood out clearly, even at night. The friend who drove me here will obscure your passage somewhat, but an experienced tracker will still find you easily. I can help you in that respect, and show you another way across the Broken Lands into the bargain. It is definitely not safe to travel at night, but I can direct you to the junction now and we can continue at dawn.”

  For a brief moment, Sal felt doubt. The surgeon had healed Shilly willingly enough, and for little money. He professed to be concerned only about Shilly’s injury. But if his concern for the broken leg was greater than his desire to help Sal escape, and if the Sky Warden had convinced him that Shilly would receive better care away from Sal, Lutz might willingly betray them. They didn’t know how far he would go to save a patient from herself.

  Sal’s instinct told him that they could trust the surgeon, but it didn’t entirely reassure him, either. There was something behind Lutz’s words that didn’t entirely ring true. Had they had any other options, he might have reconsidered the decision he had to make, but as it was he had little choice.