by Sparks,Cat
This time was different. This time she was certain.
“What do I have to do?”
To make it happen. To make it all real. To put things back the way they were supposed to be.
= Forty-five =
Night fell across the boneyard of planes. Flame crackled in a rusted, cut down oil drum where Hackett had built a fire. Blackened sand skinks roasted over the top on elongated splinters. Grieve had proved himself skilled at flushing the skittish creatures out from under piles of rubble, which was fortunate as they didn’t have much food.
He helped himself to a couple of skinks. Nobody tried to stop him. He made his way to the rocks where Star was sitting away from all the others. “Mind if I join you?”
“Yes.”
Grieve smiled. He sat down beside her—close, but not too close. She shuffled along a little—but not far.
“So how’d you come to get mixed up with one of those?” he said as he licked his fingers and picked a skink up off the metal scrap he was using for a plate.
The roasted lizards were tough and sinewy, but he gnawed away with grunting relish, his manners reminiscent of a campfire dog’s.
“One of those what?”
He nodded in the direction of the oil drum fire and the ones who stood around it talking in low voices. “That Templar.”
Star chewed the last of her mouthful and swallowed. “Don’t know what you mean.”
Grieve snorted. “Sure you do. Look at it. Twice the size of a normal man. Twice as fast too, if you’ve ever seen one in action.”
Star kept chewing, watching details of the others illuminated patchily by flame. Quarrel was the only one not talking. He didn’t seem to be doing anything, just towering above the rusted drum and its heat.
Grieve wiped his greasy hands on his pants. “They’re supersoldiers, grown in tanks. Hundreds of years old, some of them.”
“Bullshit.” She wriggled a little further along the rock trying to get comfortable, taking the opportunity to check that her bandaged arm was not showing beneath her sleeve.
“It’s true—some of ’em even older. Veterans of Maratista, Crysse Plain, Crow Ridge, Woomera. Same vintage as the battletankers, some of ’em, according to my cousin Selene, although you don’t wanna go believing all her crap.”
“Like I don’t want to go believing all of yours.”
He laughed. “Suit yourself.” He took a sliver of wood from his pocket and began picking at his teeth. “Where you from?”
“None of your business.”
“Sheesh. Just trying to make a bit of friendly banter. Where you from, what’s your name. The kind of things you ask of any stranger.”
“I saved your life today. Isn’t that friendly enough?”
They sat in silence for awhile, Star compulsively checking on that sleeve, hoping he would go away, or that Bimini or one of the others—even Quarrel—would call her over, give her an excuse. But Bimini had her back half turned as she warmed her hands by the fire. Quarrel moved to stand on his own, staring out across the Black, as she’d seen him do so often. Troubled by the lurid sky and things that only he could see.
Grieve flicked the wooden splinter to the sand. “Templars don’t sleep and they’re damned impossible to kill. Got vat-grown bones strengthened with titanium alloy. They heal real fast and their blood’s not like blood regular. More like the stuff they drain out of those tankers. They reckon a few survived to roam the Red, and the mountains too, only that one . . . that one’s way too civilised to have been roaming the Red for centuries, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re making all this up,” she said, checking him out: pale skin streaked with sunburn and skink grease. Matted hair in even worse condition than her own.
He shrugged. “Been around the block a few times. Seen a thing or two—and what I haven’t seen, I’ve heard about.”
“So which was it that saw you wound up chained to a row of dying men? Something you saw or something you heard about?”
Grieve gave her a strange little smile. Straw-like hair flopped across his eyes as he poked at the sand with the skink skewer.
“Wrong place, wrong time, bad luck, same as always.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged.
“You got family out here somewhere?” she asked.
“Did have. Once.”
She nodded. She understood.
“How about you?”
She straightened her back, attempting one more time to shift into a slightly more comfortable position. “No. No family.”
He nodded, poking at the sand with the skewer, drawing patterns then scrubbing them out again.
Star did as Quarrel was doing. Stared out across the Black for signs of the vicious storm cloud creature that had chased them from the wreckage of their ship. She tried not to think of Lucius, imagining his face as he slid through the stinking fissure, arms reaching up to clutch at empty air.
“So how come you know so much about Templars?” she asked.
Grieve kept stabbing at the sand. “Don’t know much, really. Just what everybody knows. Selene was the real expert. She done dealings right up at the Lucent steps. Couple of ’em stand as guardians to the pass.”
“Selene?”
“My cousin.”
“So you do have . . .”
He shook his head. “Don’t have anything. Not anymore.” He stared at his feet. “Don’t even know where I am. Got myself as far as Heel. Reckoned it as good a place as any.”
She nodded at the mention of the town she had so desperately longed to call her own.
“Tell you what I do know for a fact,” he continued. “Those Fortress Cities are on the rise. Waking up after centuries of slumber.” He stabbed in the direction of the fire. “Back on the Sand Road, everyone’s been fighting long and hard to make a go of it. Doing it lean while the Red keeps creeping and the storms bloom fierce. But those deepdown city folk, they bunkered, sat out the worst of it. Hoarded all that food and water. Could have shared it, helped us out but they never tried. No front gates on those Fortress Cities. No way in or out. Ever been up close?”
Star shook her head.
“Don’t blame you. There’s mines aplenty and Templars roaming, half-crazed from the sun. They left us behind to do the hard yards and now they’ll come to strip it all away. You just watch.”
He shoved the end of the skewer into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Spat it out again. “Don’t you trust that thing, no matter what it says. It’s promises aren’t worth shit.”
They both glanced across to Quarrel. Seeming to sense them, he turned to meet their gaze.
“Gives me the shivers,” said Grieve.
“I don’t trust anybody anymore,” said Star.
“Very wise,” said Grieve. “Very wise. Especially with everyone chasing that old-time war reliquary down.”
She sat up straighter. “What do you know about it?”
He laughed. “Only that it must be made of solid gold, or something even more valuable. What the hell else would anybody be doing way out here at the arse end of beyond . . .” His voice trailed off, and he gestured towards the planes behind them.
She turned her head and looked. “World must really have been something, back in the old days.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was.”
She smiled to herself. A private smile, something she didn’t want him to see.
“So, that beautiful girl, Allegra, you said you know her?”
“We’re friends,” Star said, pleased that he seemed so impressed, although she wasn’t certain why she felt that way.
Grieve angled his body around to face her. “Good friends?”
&nbs
p; “Used to get invited to her mansion all the time. We had tea with cups and saucers made of old-world porcelain. Fancy foods on platters I don’t even know the names of.” She stared wistfully at the stick trails he’d been drawing in the sand. “Lots of food, there was.”
He nodded. “Sounds like the right kind of friend to have.”
“They snatched her off the docks—she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Don’t worry—her kind always land on their feet.”
She was about to ask him what he meant by that when he interrupted.
“So where are you sleeping? Feel like—”
Star shot him a filthy look, snatched up the torn scrap of sail she’d planned on using as a blanket, and headed for the row of planes while there was still enough light to see by. She’d picked the one she wanted earlier, when they’d done a cursory reconnaissance. She didn’t feel safe with the others. Not with Lucius gone. Yet without sleep, she’d be as good as useless. Templars never sleep, what a crock. She’d have stuck close by to Bimini, only the woman seemed to have vanished already, found herself a private place to kip.
“Don’t follow me,” she called back over her shoulder.
Grieve raised his hands in mock surrender. “No fear. Not after seeing you acquit yourself with a blade.”
She smiled that private smile again. She was almost starting to like him. Wanted to like him, but now was not the time and this was definitely not the place. Maybe if they ever made it back to Fallow Heel . . . But that place seemed such a long, long way away.
She climbed up into the belly of a plane by way of a rusty ladder placed against its side, moving carefully—two of the rungs snapped off under her weight.
At first there wasn’t much to see. Darkness, a metal cave with light bleeding through a large gash in the side. When her eyes adjusted and she moved a few steps in, she saw two cooking pots and a mattress brittle with dust. Human bones draped loosely in scraps of rag, picked clean by the ages—or maybe rats. Remains of three adults, two children and a dog. A plastic doll with big blue painted eyes. Other faded things she didn’t know the names of.
Star picked up the doll, cradled it gently as if it were a kitten. An ugly thing with a head way too big. Nobody had ever looked like that.
Sections of roof had been torn away. Through the giant rent she could see the bright white band of constellations: the bull, the warrior, the twins, and the dog. Moving amongst them, Angels, some dancing, some pushing on in a steady line. Others traveling solo, swimming lost and lonely through the diamond peppered darkness.
Why did the Angels fight each other? What had brought so many crashing to the sand? Those were questions not even Nene knew how to answer.
As she drifted into slumber she realised her arm was no longer painful. But she wasn’t ready to remove the bandage and examine the expanding metal’s progress. She’d do it in the morning, by the light of a new day. Tomorrow. Everything would look better in the morning.
= Forty-six =
The Razael slowed suddenly, its timbers creaking and shuddering. The crash of breaking crockery and loud swearing echoed down the corridors, audible through the thin bulkheads of the stateroom.
“That girl is pumping you for information,” said Tallis, leaning in closer to his friend, making sure he had his full attention. “You can’t trust her or anything she says. The father is more reliable. He knows what lies in store for him if we ever get him back to Axa.”
Kian lent comfortably back in his chair. He was only half listening, had barely touched the wine Tallis had poured. His thoughts were scattered: from the landscape they were travelling to the knowledge that he had made it farther from home than any Axan adventurer before him. Beyond the Red and beyond the Black. Beyond the limits of his family’s reach.
Limits. It had always been about the limits, the self-imposed restrictions people back home allowed to weigh them down and fence them in. More than half of Axan scholars were convinced the world had blown itself to pieces. That what was left remained deadly and uninhabitable. Kian sniffed. Dangerous, yes, unavoidably so, but deadly was an overstatement. The post-Ruin world presented challenges, that was all. Nothing he and his people couldn’t handle.
Tallis clicked his fingers. “Kian, are you listening to me?”
Kian shifted in his chair. “I heard you.”
Tallis nodded, his stare unwavering. “She’s playing you. Feeding you the lies you want to hear.”
Kian smiled. “Don’t worry, Tal. She’s beautiful to be sure, but I’m no fool.” He picked up his wine and sipped it thoughtfully, then raised his glass to gesture at the row of framed pictures spread about the walls of the captain’s cabin. Each one a curiosity: an ivory palace with a splendid dome, tall white columns flanking either side. A cliff with mighty torrents of water gushing over its edge. Four men’s faces carved into grey mountainside.
“Each one of those places used to stand. Perhaps they’re standing still, waiting for the rest of us to wake up, crawl out of the ground and find them.”
Tallis’s expression remained grim. “We could die out here,” he said. “Go up on deck, take a look at the sky. Tell me you’ve ever seen anything like it. The ones who attempted to mutiny and turn us back were frightened by it—and I don’t blame them.”
“Superstitious idiots,” said Kian, “But that girl? She’s something special. Always thinking about the future. How to twist each situation to make it go her way.” Even thinking about her made him smile. He leant back further in the chair, placed his feet upon the shiny hardwood desk that dominated the cabin. “You’ve got to respect that line of thinking, even in your opposition.”
Kian sunk further into the chair’s comfortable leather depths—leather that was probably older than he was. Everything on this ship was old and fine. The fat old man had exceedingly excellent taste.
His mind drifted to the dreary parade of simpering dolls his uncle had so helpfully introduced to his father’s house, all marriageable prospects, high born with important clan and trade connections. Fragile things, delicate and wan as old-world porcelain, each one utterly indistinguishable from the other. His uncle would laugh heartily, slapping him on the back, assuring Kian that he didn’t have to like them, just select one to be the mother of his children, sit next to her at Solstice, Equinox, and Commemoration day banquets. Whatever he got up to on his own time was his business.
Allegra could not have been more different. She was no doll, she was a firebrand. A force of nature. Every time she spat in his face he felt himself liking her a little bit more for having dared. Chained to a wall under threat of pain, and still she spat and swore and made demands! It would be such a shame if he had to kill her. Hopefully, it would not come to that. The girl was smart enough to cut herself a deal, he was certain, even if his bodyguards were not.
Tallis paced the length of the thick woollen carpet. “There’s more you should know. Rumours about that thing you say is out there,” he said.
“Superstitious people, like I told you,” Kian replied. “The Lotus Blue, if I recognize that symbol correctly, is no more dangerous than those ancient tankers, and so far none of them have managed to put even a dent in this vessel’s side.”
Tallis had nothing to say to that, which was just as well because Kian wasn’t in the mood to argue. Since they’d stopped to dump the mutineers back amongst the broken planes, he’d had been spending most of his time below talking with Allegra, learning what he could about Heel life and commerce.
Whereas Tallis and his brother had spent most of their time on deck, making sure the snarling, dejected crew could see them, ensuring another mutiny did not take place. Jakome had, apparently, already pitched one troublemaker over the side, swiftly and without chance for argument. All three were in agreement about one thing: that they could not afford to stop the ship
again, despite the open sand being thick with tankers screaming their hideous songs at one another, moving in bizarre formations, making patterns, then changing them with lightning speed. The Razael would have to push on through while the way ahead was clear enough to travel. The Lotus Blue was the only thing that mattered. Treasure of one kind or another lay within its walls. Perhaps something none of them could clearly imagine; the operating system of a weapon beyond their comprehension, at best a broken heap of junk—but what if it wasn’t?
Kian was certain adventurers from other fortress cities would help themselves if Axa didn’t stake its claim. Raneesh Patel had been easy to find once somebody had bothered looking in the one same place the man had lived untroubled across decades. They would never get a better chance than this. And the girl would help them. She didn’t have a choice.
“She’ll kill you, cousin, at the first opportunity! Kill us all, seize control of the ship, turn it round and steer it back to port.”
Kian responded to Tallis’s intrusion with a patronising glance. “No she won’t. Not so long as I have her father serving as collateral. Cousin, when that girl looks at me, what do you think she sees?”
Tallis shrugged.
“She sees her future. The fact that she is one of us. Better than those savages she was raised with.” He leaned forward, slammed the glass down on the table. “What’s good for us is good for her, even if she has to fight her own father to get her hands on it.”
A sharp rap on the door startled both of them. Kian got to his feet as the door swung inward, and one of the red-coats reporting from on deck entered.
“Captain, something you need to see. Tankers pulling up alongside the vessel.”
“Preparing to ram?”
“No, I don’t think so, but you need to see for yourself. They seem to be racing us.”
“Racing?”
Tallis shot through the door and up the companionway, not waiting for Kian to catch him up.
“This voyage proves more interesting every day that passes,” said Kian to the red-coat who nodded deferentially and shut the door behind them.