A deafening silence settled on the Cloud Room, save for Kite's heartbeat thundering in his throat.
“He’s dead,” the Corrector gasped. She had tears in her eyes. “He's finally dead. After all this time. I've waited so long for this moment. Dreamt of it. You can't imagine how long we’ve searched for a way to be free of him.”
But Kite didn’t share the Corrector’s joy. The Cloud Room floor had begun to segment again, once more throwing him into the sky. Soon Fairweather filled his view again.
Ember looked at the city. For a cruel moment her face broke with an enchanted smile. “Skyzarke!” she gasped. Then, as it had done for Kite, the awful truth came to her. “This isn’t Skyzarke. This is his city.”
A sharp change in the atmosphere pressed like thumbs into Kite's temple. Instinctively he stepped away. Ember's eyes glowed with fire. Her lips moved, silently at first, repeating the same words. A heartbeat later those same, terrible words, came crashing into the Cloud Room:
“When stormy is the weather and thunder shakes the sky. The children of the sun will ask the question why!”
63
The Starmaker's Daughter
“The Forecaster's Fable,” the Corrector said, limping closer to him. “Why is she still saying it?”
The Cloud Room shuddered. The hexagonal panels under his feet vibrated with a discordant hum. Cold fingers crept across Kite's skin. “Ember's going to destroy Fairweather,” he said. “She's going to use the Ether Shield to do it.”
The colour drained from the Corrector's cheeks. “B-but it was Lux,” he said. “The people...they've done nothing wrong. Tell her!”
Kite looked inside himself then. Should he try and stop Ember? After all Lux had done to the Askians, what right did he have to deny Ember her vengeance. He glanced down at Fairweather, at oblivious thousands going about their wonderful lives. He knew the terrible cost of that choice.
“I can't stop her,” Kite said. “No-one can.”
The Corrector eyes fell on the mempod. “Give it to me,” she said, shuffling toward him. “I'll smash it, then the city will be safe.”
Kite didn't move. “It won't make a difference,” he said. “Listen.”
The Corrector glanced around the trembling Cloud Room. The walls were shaking. A distant hissing noise, gasses venting and bursting from pipes, rolled in over the violent shudders.
“She’s already shutting it down,” Kite said and pointed at the fragile city thousands of feet below them. “The only thing you can do is warm them.”
The Corrector seemed to understand at last. She staggered to the wall, searching for a secret panel. Click. The Cloud Room doors began to open but instantly mosfire beams slashed across her path. The Corrector sank to her knees. “Please,” she begged. “Please...you can't do this!”
Ember's eyes glowed with a malevolent glee. With arms wide she performed an indulgent twirl and laughed.
“But I must destroy Fairweather,” Ember said, her voice overlapping the Forecaster's Fable. “You see, it's what I've wanted more than anything in the world! It's all I could think about. All those years. Waiting in the dark. Nothing but my memories. All those years waiting to be found so I could destroy you all. And then Kite Nayward came along and made it all possible. I never did thank you.”
Kite shook his head. “I didn't want this, Ember,” he said.
“We'll watch it together,” Ember said, appearing not to hear him. “Just you and me. Yes, together.”
“No, Ember,” Kite said.
Ember eyes burned fiery and furious. “No?” her voice clawed at the air.
Kite shuddered. Right now he was more afraid of Ember than he'd ever been of Lux. “I told you, I have to find Fleer,” he said.
Drifting closer Ember reached out to him. Tiny fingers of light brushed Kite's cheek but he could only feel the chill breath of the Cloud Room against his skin. Ember frowned and took her fingers away. A sadness came over her and when she spoke the words sounded tiny and fragile, so close that Kite was certain only he could hear them. “Arcus said I would have everything I wanted in the Cloud Room. Here I would be alive again. To run and dance and laugh. Here I would never be alone. But...it was a lie. All of it lies.”
“I’m sorry Ember,” Kite said.
Ember drifted closer. “Will you find me a body, Kite Nayward?” she said. “Will you bring it to me so that we can be together again?”
The Cloud Room shook under him. Kite nodded uncertainly. “I will try, Ember,” he said, even though, at that moment, he didn’t know if he’d live long enough.
“Promise me?” Ember said. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
With a shaking hand Kite made the sign. “I promise,” he said. “You know I keep my promises.”
Ember’s red eyes dimmed a little. “Yes, you do keep your promises,” she said.
One by one the mosfire beams retracted, leaving the way clear. The Corrector dashed through. Kite slipped the mempod into his pocket. A part of him didn’t want to leave Ember in this metal prison but if he didn’t go now he’d never find his way back to Fleer.
“Good-bye, Ember,” he said and ran to the doors.
Kite’s last sight of the Starmaker's daughter would be forever etched on his memory. A tiny ghost in the sky. Alone, radiant and terrifying, with the clouds beneath her feet and a city at her mercy...
64
The Escape
Kite's legs grew heavy as the elevator propelled him to the upper levels. He imagined the metal capsule whizzing through the Ether Shield's innards, through sections he'd passed with Ember only hours before. Taking him back to the surface. Taking him back to Fleer. The sounds of a dying machine reminding him that time was running out for both of them.
“This is the fastest way to the Control Room,” the Corrector said. She was cradling the Umbrella Man's head, salvaged during their escape from the Cloud Room. “The scientists will be able to stop her.”
Kite glanced her, wondering how anyone could cling to hope when it was obvious there was none. “You have a family?” he asked. “In Fairweather?”
“A daughter,” the Corrector said.
“Then you should warn her,” Kite said. “While there's time.”
Another tremor rattled the elevator's cylindrical walls. The strip-lights flickered. Kite willed the them to reach their destination. Everything was taking too long.
“Before, in my office,” the Corrector suddenly said. “You stopped her from killing me. Why?”
“You sound like I should have let her finish the job,” Kite replied.
The Corrector glanced sharply away. “Maybe you should have. I’ve done things you can't imagine, Kite Nayward,” she said. “I’ve always known that one day I would be judged and punished for my crimes. I thought that day had come.”
The elevator finally began to slow. Kite stared at the doors. “Day's not over yet,” he said.
Chaos and panic had engulfed the Ether Shield's Control Room. The sweat of fear soured the air. Screens were ablaze with flashing warnings and scarlet 'Emergency' signs. Dozens of scientists rushed back and forth. Kite recognised their sickly yellow uniforms. Men and women, even apprentices his own age. Some crowded hopelessly at workstations, exchanging exasperated looks and arguing amongst themselves, while Ember’s rhyme played out from every speaker.
“...the children of the sun will ask the question why...”
The Control Room's observation windows looked out over the sky harbour. The Vorticity sat silently in its berth. Kite scanned the room for the exit but the Corrector wouldn't let go of his arm, pulling him with her across to the scientists.
One of them turned from the huddle. “Corrector, your appearance is well timed,” he said. His face was sheened with sweat, his spotted pate glistening like a polished egg. “We appear to be having some kind of system-wide malfunction. I believe it is coinciding with a performance of the Forecaster's Fable. Which is most odd.”
The Corrector trembled w
here her hand gripped Kite arm. “Is there nothing your team can do, Professor?” she said.
The scientist scratched nervously at the backs of his hands. “We're trying to... that is... it appears some kind of virus has attacked the fail-safe systems and we cannot get access to...” he mumbled, and then seemed to see Kite for the first time and his face cracked with panic. “Everything is shutting down, Corrector! The core control computer, the silver iodide delivery system, the atmospheric systems, even the turbines in the outer rings. The turbines! At this rate the Ether Shield will collapse under its own weight.”
The Ether Shield shook on cue. The Control Room's glass walls wobbled. A deathly hush fell among the Weatheren scientists.
“Warn them,” Kite said, breaking the silence.
The Corrector faltered for a second, realisation sinking in at last.
“Warn them, or they will all die!”
The Corrector nodded. “Evacuate the Ether Shield immediately, Professor!” she ordered, and pulled Kite toward the exit. “Get all staff to the ascenders at once! Warn Fairweather. Tell everyone to leave the city.”
The scientist’s mouth opened and close.
“At once, Professor!” the Corrector shouted over her shoulder and pushed Kite through the door.
On the metal stairwell, high over the panicked harbour, the Corrector let him go.
“I won't stop you from trying to escape, Kite Nayward,” she called over the klaxons. “But if the Armoured Constables catch you they will kill you and I won't be able to stop them. Do you understand?”
Kite didn't care for the woman. He could never forgive her for Ersa's death. But he could tell, at this moment, the Corrector was as frightened as he was.
“Just tell me where Fleer is,” Kite said.
“On the Vorticity, Holding Room B,” the Corrector said and with the Umbrella Man’s head still tucked under her arm she pushed her way back into the Control Room and was gone.
65
Holding Room B
Kite ran between the containers, crouching at corners and slipping between the gaps. Inching closer to the Vorticity’s mooring he scanned the berths. The evacuation was well underway. Among the crimson soldiers, Kite spied the white and gold of the Corona Council shuffling up the gangplanks and into the bellies of the Tramontane, Thunderer and Noctilucent. Scientists and engineers followed, arms toppling with document cases and message capsules, pushing and panicking, all desperate to board.
The Vorticity had been abandoned. Cordoned off and silent, a mountain of dead metal with hundreds of windows frosted and her turbines, cold and glistening with a shell of ice. Kite’s teeth rattled in his skull. He couldn't remember it being this cold when the Vorticity had docked. Then it struck him. Ember was shutting down all the systems. The pressurised atmosphere. The oxygen supply. In a matter of minutes everyone who wasn't on a ascender would be dead as the whales...
The Noctilucent powered her Maelstrom engines, rumbling the deck under Kite's boots. He watched as the desperate crowd surged in response, turning feral with a sudden infection of panic. Overwhelmed and their orders for calm ignored the soldiers began casting doubtful looks at their Sergeants. Perhaps they too just realised there wasn't enough room on the ascenders for everyone.
Another tremor shook the sky harbour. Somewhere out in the Ether Shield's many rings Kite heard a chorus of thick piping sounds. Gasses being released. Pipes bursting under pressure. Then the dome over his head flexed and wobbled, its great supports groaning under the stress. A splintering crack cut through the din of alarms. White cobwebs etched themselves on the hexagon panels and glittering shards rained onto the heads of the screaming evacuees.
In minutes they’d all be dead.
Taking advantage of the chaos Kite crept to the massive docking clamps and up the Vorticity's ramp and into its vast, unlit Hangar Deck. Once inside he dashed by a row liftships, each one sparkling with a dusting of ice, toward the stairwell that would lead him to the upper decks.
Kite halted. Shoes slapped on the steps above. He searched for a hiding place, eventually throwing himself behind a stack of air cylinders. Scurrying down the steps came an interrogator in a lab coat and elbow-length rubber gloves. He hugged a small suitcase, jabbering to himself as he fled for the ramp.
Kite stilled his rapid breaths, keeping absolutely still until he was sure the interrogator had left. Then he crept out of his hiding place. As he did a familiar black shape catching his eye - the stormwing.
Lying idle in a puddle of melted ice behind the stairs it had been completely forgotten. The soldiers must have brought it aboard after he'd landed on the top deck. Kite dragged it out and began checking it over.
The Vorticity juddered violently, shunting the liftships in the moorings. A unsecured air cylinder struck the deck with an ear-rattling brong! Out in the harbour turbines roared. Another ascender preparing to disembark.
Kite clipped the stormwing’s safety line to the stairwell railing, hoping that would secure it until he got back. Then he dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Without power the stairwells were black as night. Forced to feel his way Kite used the railings, the metal burning his palm. Up and up he climbed. With each step his legs grew heavier and heavier. Before long Kite was forced to pause for breath. The air tore at his throat, straining his aching lungs. The temperature had plunged to a knife-edge that hollowed his cheeks and stung his bruises.
Kite forced himself on. The creaking ascender appeared to be abandoned but still he slid to the corners watchful of Weatheren shadows. He checked each corridor in turn, stopping only to listen to the rumbles and thumps. They were coming in more regular waves now. Time was not on his side.
Kite made his way to level three. His ragged breaths fogged on the air. Ice sparkled on the walls. Eventually he reached the black corridor with offices on one side and a row of bleak holding rooms down the other. Papers and syringes and shards of cracked glass littered the deck. The ghost of panic lingered in the air. One door was open - Holding Room B.
Kite stepped cautiously into the narrow metal room. There was an angled bed the middle, draped with a white linen sheet spattered with blood. An ice-frosted body lay sprawled on the tiles, Kite's soft shadow obscuring the face.
Kite forced himself to approach the body. Slowly he stepped aside, allowing the silvery light from the corridor to creep over the blue-lipped corpse. Kite choked on a gasp. It was one of the Corrector's interrogators, with wide horror-filled eyes and a gleaming scalpel buried deep in his neck.
Kite glanced away, catching the ragged, bloody footprints glistening on the chequer-board tiles. Footprints that lead back to the door and out into the corridor. He followed them across the way to a dark room with a green cross on the half-open door. A dispensary, similar to the one Dr.Nightborn had on the Phosphene.
A bloody handprint was smeared on the door handle.
Kite peered inside. Shelves were stocked high with white packets and brown bottles, medicines or poisons, he didn't know which. He pushed open the door. Inside was a desk and a table and a chair. On the table a crate had been stuffed with clothes, tagged with labels written in Fairspeak.
Kite entered the room. As he did something cold and sharp pressed against the back of his neck.
“Fleer?” Kite said.
“D-did it work?” Fleer’s voice was harsh and trembling. The cold blade burned against his skin. “Did the Captain’s plan work?”
Kite’s relief washed away. He couldn't believe her. Was that all she cared about? Didn't she even care that he'd come back for her?
“Yes! Shelvocke's master plan worked brilliantly! Ember's about to kill everyone, us included! Happy now?”
Fleer eased up on the blade. She was close. Her breaths coming in short sharp rasps. “H-hand me my clothes,” she said. “And don't turn around.”
The room shook. Bottles and bandages toppled off the shelf. Kite found Fleer's airworker suit in the box and awkwardly passed ove
r his shoulder. Her shaking hand took it. Warm blood dripped on his arm.
“Y-you're hurt!” he said, turning slightly.
“I said don’t turn around!”
Kite reluctantly did as Fleer asked. He heard her struggling to dress; a quick, urgent ruffle of cloth and a stifled gasp. Then a messy, chaotic slapping of flesh and the door kicked shut.
“I said don't turn around, Nayward!” Fleer cried.
But it was too late. What the interrogators had done to her sickened Kite. They'd stripped her and beaten her to bruises. Her arm and neck were spattered in fresh blood. He couldn’t tell if it was from her wounds or the interrogator she’d murdered.
“Don't...don't look at me,” Fleer said, looking away. She was ashamed of being so helpless. But Kite knew that feeling all too well and there was no shame in it.
Kite lifted her from the floor. He was surprised how light how frail she felt. Maybe Fleer was too shocked or too exhausted but she didn't fight him. Kite took her to the chair and set her down gently, taking care not to add to her injuries. He snatched packs of bandages from the shelves and tore them open with his teeth.
“I wish your mother was here,” Kite said, cleaning away the blood. “She'd know what to do.”
Fleer kept quiet. Maybe she was thinking the same thing. Carefully Kite wrapped Fleer's swollen toes and he wrapped her naked belly. Then he dressed her in the airworker suit. First her legs, then her arms. And all the while Fleer sat there, shivering and staring into the corner.
Then she said, “why didn't you leave when you had the chance?”
Kite’s cheeks burned a little. He didn't think he could lie to her but then again, he didn't think he had the courage to tell her the truth either.
“I promised your mother I’d find you,” he said, slipping the boots over Fleer's bandaged feet. “And you know me, I always keep my promises.”
Without warning Fleer pressed her mouth against his bruised, swollen lips. Kite winced with surprise at first. He didn't think his first real kiss would be so painful.
The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) Page 26