City of Dust

by Michelle Kenney

  She spoke rapidly, her clinical training giving her strength although I knew she had to know most of the renegade Prolet families personally. As leader of the Prolet effort to integrate with Pantheon, she had to feel responsibility for their protection too. It was clear that whether Arafel helped or not, she would do everything she could to find them.

  ‘If they are in a weakened state, and Cassius releases his personal battalion of molossers or even strix, they won’t have the strength to fight or escape. And Cassius likes to make an example of those who challenge the system. I can’t imagine he will be content simply to parade sixty insurgent prisoners. He will want something in return – and I don’t mean their white flag.’

  I turned back to Art, hoping he would make an exception, just this once. He was Grandpa’s successor as leader of the Council, and infamous for his strong sense of fairness. He was also a stickler for the rules.

  Art stared at us both, his astute eyes getting the measure of Aelia swiftly. Then he drew a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry, Talia, but on this my hands are tied. The only thing I can offer you for certain is an extraordinary meeting of the Ring, followed by a vote. It will take a little longer than you will like, but perhaps that time is usefully spent considering the path that may lie ahead? None of Arafel’s hunters will know the ruined city tunnels, and if we are forced to engage with Cassius, there will be injury and loss of life.

  ‘I understand your urgency,’ he added gently, ‘but this decision needs thorough debate. We are hunters, farmers, survivors … not warriors.’

  I glanced at Aelia. She was pale and completely still.

  ‘I will call a Ring, but I cannot promise you the decision you want.’

  I nodded, knowing better than to push. We’d secured a meeting, and that had to be enough for now. Moments later we were dropping down through Art’s aged trapdoor to the forest floor beneath.

  I looked at Aelia, her face in shadows, her agitation tangible.

  ‘I know it’s not exactly the outcome we wanted. But just let Art talk to the village … I’m sure they’ll—’

  ‘I understand,’ she cut in shortly. ‘It’s a big ask, and Arafel is your home. You are all safe, while the insurgents … my people … Look, I get it, OK? I just need a few minutes to compose my thoughts before the meeting. And I need to speak with Rajid. I’ll listen for the Ring alarm and meet you there.’

  I nodded silently, wanting to say so many things but unable to find the right words. Aelia was my feisty friend who was as unpredictable as she was loyal, but this time we weren’t facing the manticore or some other beast of Pantheon. This time the stakes were so much higher. She spun on her heel and headed off into the darkness.

  Reluctantly, I started in the opposite direction, intending to find Mum and Eli before the alarm. The last of the afternoon light was receding and Pacha, the village lantern-bearer had begun lighting the beeswax candles suspended in willow rope jars from our treehouses. They illuminated a path through the forest at night, but the effect was to cast our homes into an ethereal half-light. Mum called it fairy-tale, but tonight their glow did little to soothe my nerves.

  ‘Tal?’

  Max’s voice stopped me in my tracks and when I followed its direction, I could just make out his healthy face among the dusky branches of a dense red cedar. Instinctively, I gripped the strong arm that followed. His proximity was usually the only thing that enabled me to think straight.

  I leveraged myself using the tree’s thick, nodulous bark but there was no real need. Max led Arafel’s treehouse construction team, and I was sharing his bough within seconds. I gazed through the feathery leaves that fringed his brown skin. He had three fresh rabbits attached to his leather waistband, and a forced smile pinned to his face.

  For a moment neither of us said anything. It had been like this for a while now. The weighted silence. Like he was slowly building towards something methodically, the way he built treehouses. Only this subject wasn’t approachable with sheer logic, and there was no previous design for him to copy or adapt. It wasn’t a conversation I was anticipating in any way either, which made me the biggest coward, and him more than confused.

  I loved Max fiercely, but there was a dam somewhere in my throat, one that blocked up all emotional pathways between my heart and mouth. And no matter how close we were, there was still a void between us, preventing those final words.

  ‘I made something for you,’ he murmured.

  There was an underlying question in his voice, and I knew he wanted to ask how the conversation with Art had gone, that in his head he was already racing across the forest. Max to the rescue. He was always so damned busy trying to rescue everyone, he rarely stopped to ask if they wanted rescuing in the first place.

  My stomach pitched as he held out a small wooden object. Anticipating, always anticipating. I stared incomprehensibly at first. In the twilight it looked a little like a wooden mushroom with a short fat stalk and a bigger, carefully whittled cap. Then, as I gazed, the fine markings of his determined wood-carving knife became clearer. I reached out and picked it up in wonder; it was no bigger than a whistle, but the craftsmanship was superb.

  Lost for words, I turned it over and around in the palm of my hand. It was all there – the thick trunk, the veined knotted branches, the tiny indentations of a willow rope ladder and trapdoor.

  ‘It’s a treehouse,’ I whispered, my words slowing as the significance of his gift began to sink in.

  He nodded shyly, waiting for the right reaction. A reaction that gave him the light he needed, a reaction that patched the need for real words – and real, honest conversation.

  ‘Not just any old treehouse,’ he returned, reaching across to pick it up gently and perform a swift manoeuvre. I gasped, as with a swift twist of his deft fingers, the small tip came away revealing a small, perfectly formed dart tube.

  ‘It’s one of the most accurate blow tubes I’ve designed.’ He frowned in concentration. ‘The aperture is just large enough to take one of our darts, and the narrow circumference maximizes direction and speed … Like this, see?’

  He plucked a fresh cedar leaf, rolled it up into a tiny scroll and inserted it carefully into the tube. Then he raised it to his lips, and aimed at the floor beneath our feet. Two seconds later it was lying next to a small grey stone, slowly unfurling.

  I stared at him in wonder.

  ‘You really are the most incredible craftsman,’ I murmured with real awe, hoping it would be enough, for now.

  ‘It’s perfectly balanced … the treehouse dart tube I mean,’ he added, his eyes shining uncertainly.

  I nodded, knowing it wasn’t what he meant at all, that he hadn’t intended just to give me this. That it was his door into a conversation.

  ‘Max, I …’ I intervened, my head racing with a thousand inadequate words.

  ‘Sssh!’

  He pressed a work-worn finger against my lips; and an expression flickered across his face, something between frustration and stubborn hope. It made me want to reach up and cradle his honest face in my shallow hands.

  ‘I thought you could wear it, like a necklace? So it rests here … my favourite spot.’

  He dropped his fingers to gently brush the hollow of my neck, and I felt a flush steal up my neck. They were the same words he’d whispered that night, and he knew it.

  ‘Here, I could kiss here all night … I can see your blood pulsing, alive and vibrant. It’s such a gift, after everything.’

  My world wobbled.

  We’d already sealed our caring the most intimate way possible so why was I still holding him at arm’s length? And, if he wanted it all so much, why in the name of Arafel wasn’t that enough?

  Perhaps if I just closed my eyes and pretended, I could lose myself long enough for it to become the truth.

  ‘It’s a practical keepsake … for while I’m gone,’ he whispered.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I frowned. ‘Art will need to send Arafel’s best hunter
s. I’m one!’

  ‘I know. But you can’t leave your family, not again. Your mum’s right – you’ve risked enough already. It’s your turn to take a back seat, Tal. If Cassius came across you …’ He paused, a ferocious scowl suddenly contorting his face.

  I looked away. The moon wound only a milky light through the cedar’s branches, but right then it felt as though I were standing in the full glare of the sun. I pressed my nails into my hands, suppressing the feelings running wild beneath my skin. I couldn’t let Max see how I felt about Cassius. That I knew he would like nothing more than to have his vengeance on the Outsider who brought Pantheon crashing down around his ears. And probably in the most sadistic way. Because Max would make it his own war. And I couldn’t have that.

  ‘I understand the risks,’ I whispered, watching light diamonds flicker in his eyes, ‘but he’d still have to catch me first.’

  A brief silence hung in the air. The moment had gone and we both knew it. And although it was only a temporary reprieve, for one insane moment I felt disappointed. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself onto the balls of my feet, readying myself to leap. Just as Max’s fingers brushed my forearm.

  ‘Has Art even agreed to it?’ he asked intently, his breath warming my cheek.

  I shook my head. ‘There’s going to be a meeting and a vote in the Ring. Art said he has to put it to the Council. Aelia was …’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Terrified.’ Our whispers coincided as Aelia’s strained face spun into my mind.

  The cedar leaves rustled with the breeze, and the tiny hairs on the backs of my arms prickled. Where would this all lead?

  ‘She thinks we’re hesitating because we don’t want to help. She says time is running out.’

  I started as he reached forward and silenced my words with a swift, determined kiss. It was the briefest of gestures, but one that burned as though he had scored his initials there.

  ‘She’s not the only one,’ he whispered. ‘And at some point in the not too distant future, that fragile branch you’re clinging to is going to break. And then you’re going to have to decide if you’ll let someone real catch you … Let them build a life with you.’

  I breathed through the sudden vice in my chest, chased by a vivid memory. It was the image of us both in the dusty Flavium, surrounded by mounted Equites, waiting to die. I’d burned then for the power to heal his wounds, for the chance to make him well and happy. And finally, here I was holding that very same precious power, and balking.

  And all because of a faded face, looming out of the swirling dust. I closed my eyes as Aelia’s words echoed like a ghost through my head.

  ‘August was chosen to lead the investigation into habitable life. He was dispatched with the elite Equite force on an exploratory mission. Across Europa.’

  He hadn’t come to find me. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself, it still sucked the breath from my body every time the words echoed through my head. And why should he, after all? We’d known each other a matter of a few short days, barely enough time to like someone, let alone anything else.

  I ground my teeth. August might as well have died back in the Flavium, among the blood-coloured dust and crowing griffins. While Max was alive, here, trying to love me. And I couldn’t ask him to wait for ever. Something clicked over inside.

  I pulled open my eyes and looked straight at Max.

  ‘I want you to catch me,’ I whispered, ‘after we’ve helped Aelia.’

  Just as the words left my mouth, the night air thickened with the sound of the Ring alarm. It was a stark, invasive sound among the everyday hum of the forest, and a shiver stole through me, even though I knew its purpose. It was only ever sounded in emergencies or rare situations that couldn’t be resolved by Art and the elected Council, and most of my twenty years had passed without the need for it to disturb regular forest life.

  Max didn’t answer me, but the diamonds in his eyes brightened as they caught the glint of the moon. And as I dropped onto the forest floor, my promise felt loaded with more conviction than I’d felt in a very long time.

  Chapter 4

  The rustle of the trees seemed to echo my promise, as I trod the short distance towards the torch-lit cavern we called the Ring. I couldn’t understand myself, or my impulsiveness, only that my aversion to hurting him had become suddenly and painfully overwhelming. He’d risked his life so many times in Pantheon, just so he could protect me. And it was reason enough. Wasn’t it?

  Why run when you can fly?

  I bit my lip. Our childhood tree-running mantra had come to mean so much more following Isca Pantheon. We’d won a victory of nature over the most advanced biotechnological world, a world I hated with every fibre of my being. It had stained my hands with deceit and desire, and yet it still wasn’t a stain I wanted to fade. Not completely. So why had I just promised Max everything?

  My pace slowed as I approached the cavern; it looked as though the alarm had done its work and the entire village had turned out. I could tell by their pallid faces most were panicked about the sudden roll call, and I felt more than a little guilty as I scanned the queue for Aelia.

  I cursed softly. What I was about to ask fell into one of the most difficult and challenging questions ever asked of the Arafel community, and Aelia was nowhere to be seen.

  Seconds later, I spotted Eli and Mum, and wound my way through the crowds to take Mum’s arm before filtering inside, like everyone else.

  There was already a formal semicircle gathered around the wide, raised boulder that served as a platform, and once we were inside Art gave the signal for the thick woollen hangings to be let down. It was part of the procedure that usually made me smile, as though he expected the trees and animals themselves to be capable of spying on us. Tonight though, I didn’t feel like smiling.

  ‘Friends, I apologize for the intrusion to your evening; but we are called together as a matter of urgency.’

  There was a murmur around the crowd.

  ‘We have received a plea for help. And it doesn’t come from within Arafel, but instead from people – our kind of people – outside this mountainous valley.’

  This time there was a stony silence. And I understood why completely. Whispers about the Insiders had been told, and retold, since my childhood. And now they were fleshed out by the story that had accompanied our return from Pantheon a year ago, like a noxious cloud.

  We’d relayed a scant version of the truth at Art’s request, but Grandpa’s murder had been felt by each and every member of Arafel. He’d been a much-loved, trusted leader of the Arafel community for many years, as well as the last direct link to Thomas’s original Council through his own grandfather.

  When news of his death at Octavia’s own hand had broken, many had wanted a task force to storm Pantheon to demand justice. Only Art’s diplomatic tongue had persuaded them it would be tantamount to taking a torch to Arafel.

  And now, we were asking them to look on a party of Insiders kindly, with pity even. I doubted there was room in their hearts.

  I scanned the crowd covertly. Aelia was still nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Insiders can never be our kind of people!’ Bereg, one of the head butchers, jeered from the back of the cave.

  There was a noisy outbreak of support for the thickset, respected hunter before Art held up his hand. A slow hush swept across the space. Art had never commanded the same love as Grandpa, but he was still Arafel’s experienced and trusted leader.

  ‘My friends, I feel the same doubt, but let me beg your indulgence a little longer while I present one of the Insiders who asks for our help. A young Prolet who has risked her life on a hazardous journey over Arafel’s very own North Mountains, to find us … Aelia? And Talia? Where are you both?’ Art’s venerable voice echoed oddly around the cavernous space.

  I stood up, feeling the weight of my mother’s anxiety as I weaved through the crowd towards the dais. Art smiled, but my own facial muscles felt stiff, and I knew this was goin
g to be hard. I turned slowly and surveyed my friends, their usual affable expressions replaced with suspicion and fear. They already bore a hatred of Pantheon.

  What would Aelia say if we turned her down?

  I glanced at Max, who’d taken one of the watch guard’s posts beside the Ring entrance. He shook his head and I tried not to frown.

  Where on earth was she?

  ‘I don’t stand here with any … expectation,’ I began haltingly. ‘We all know what’s at stake every time we leave the valley … every time we cross paths with a Sweeper or Insider – and have to run for our lives.’

  The silence was heavy and oppressive. I surveyed the crowd; it was so quiet I could almost hear the lemurs in the outside forest.

  ‘But we run because … because we have somewhere to run to …’

  Someone coughed, and I swallowed. This was so much harder than I expected.

  ‘A home that I know we have created and nurtured, but also one that has nurtured us right back … Grandpa used to say: “care for the seed and it will care for you.”’

  I paused, surprised by the sudden heat behind my eyes. A soft murmur of recognition swept through the listening crowd, and I inhaled, suddenly feeling stronger. Grandpa’s wisdom and legacy lived on within us all. I just needed to harness it.

  ‘When I was a child, I thought he meant the seeds blown into the valley of Arafel. But now I’m older, I realize he was talking about seeds far closer to home. He was talking about us.’

  I stared back at their solemn faces. Watching me. I had their full attention now.

  ‘He meant for us to take care of one another, and I don’t think he meant just the people living here, in Arafel. Grandpa knew the day was coming when the tables would be turned, when the Insiders needed us. And maybe, just maybe, that day is here.

  ‘The people who have asked for our help are like us. They come from a world inside Isca Pantheon that is made up of the discarded and rejected, a world where living beings are designed to work until they drop, and a world where they are always …’