City of Dust

by Michelle Kenney

  ‘Friskers?’ Eli signed before rising to his feet and striding off in the direction of the call. Seconds later, the dense greenery parted and he re-emerged with the tip of an oversized hook beak just visible over his head. I smiled, despite myself.

  The griffin always made me stare. Standing around two and a half metres high, its powerful lion forepaws were around the size of my mother’s cooking pot, while its blood-red eyes and vibrant gold plumage were brighter than any exotic bird of prey. But it was its hard, calcified beak, filled with a double set of serrated canines that magnetized me.

  They were sharp enough to shred a human arm in seconds, but that was before Eli discovered griffins were living in a world of silence. He’d saved us all from the brink of death by using rudimentary sign language to communicate with the modified beasts and now, this particular creature could understand and respond freely.

  Though it still skulked around like a moody, domestic cat.

  ‘If you were less conspicuous, we could have taken you with us!’ Eli signed to Friskers affectionately. ‘But I’ll tell you the same thing I told my beautiful, wilful Jas. If I’m not back in three days’ time, feel free to come and rescue me.’

  He soothed the beast’s burnished neck feathers, which were gleaming in the morning sun, as it lifted its angular head to proclaim its loyalty. A couple of capuchins chimed in, and the griffin eyed the foliage with fresh interest. There was no doubt it had taken to forest life with ease.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Eli added with a smile. ‘I don’t really expect either of you to play the hero, not a lot for a handsome griffin to do in a city of dust.’

  He dug around in his pocket for a couple of sweet hazelnuts. A natural carnivore, the griffin also seemed to have a taste for herbivore treats, and Eli made sure its diet was well supplemented.

  ‘Sun’s up, it’s time we got going!’ Max interrupted.

  He disappeared as abruptly as he’d appeared, back in the direction of our small breakfast camp. Eli threw me a look that cut through every defence like an invisible Diasord.

  ‘Boyfriend got the hump?’ he signed, raising an eyebrow.

  I flushed and stood up. ‘You know it’s not like that!’ I scowled.

  Right now, I’d never been less sure of what we were, only that I’d made a promise that was haunting me.

  ***

  ‘We believe in natural order, respect for our place in the forest, and taking only what we need to survive.’

  Grandpa’s principles rang in my ears as we hiked through the unknown forest in an easterly direction, and I wondered what he would say if he could see us now. Hunting in this area of the outside forest had always been strictly prohibited; it was too close to the Dead City and wall of the Lifedomes.

  The dense, untouched foliage made for slow progress, but our hunting machetes sliced where our feet and hands struggled, and we were in good spirits, reaching the fringe of the forest by the end of the day’s hike. We trod cautiously as the trees began to thin, picking our route through a thicket of wild hawthorn with care. And although Friskers had followed us for some time, he’d chosen to retreat while the sun was still high. It seemed even a displaced griffin had better sense than to get within striking distance of the Dead City.

  It was only when we finally glimpsed our first view across the landscape of the monolithic domes that we paused to agree final tactics.

  ‘We try for the city when the sun touches the horizon and regroup here, dawn tomorrow morning. Prolets or no Prolets.’

  Max drew a white cross on a royal poinciana with a piece of natural chalk, his voice brusque.

  I looked from him to my brother. A similar unease was etched into both their faces. No one from Arafel had ever been close to the perimeter of the Dead City ruins, let alone explored them. And yet we’d all heard the stories, and stared at Arafel’s scant pre-war pictures of impossibly tall stone trees that stretched on and up.

  Less well known was the fact that a few of the more agile hunters, including Max and myself, had occasionally glimpsed the City from the highest branches of Grandpa’s Great Oak. The tree’s age meant its thinnest branches extended beyond the rest of the others, and it was from these reedier lengths that you could make out the north-westerly tip of the ruins. But it was only ever a glimpse, and from such a distance there was no sense of the layers of dust and ash – the remnants of the people who’d once lived there.

  The years had done their work, and now the ruins were fighting a different enemy, the forest herself. I recalled the moment I’d stepped out onto Octavia’s balcony, and witnessed the endless broken landscape stretching out before me like a nest of grey vipers. Sleeping and waiting.

  I repressed a shudder. Being fanciful about the Dead City wasn’t going to help at all. Our first aim was to locate the Prolets and bring them back to Arafel. We wouldn’t be popular, but burying our heads in the sand would buy only time, not a reprieve. And Eli didn’t need any further reason to think I was planning on a different course of action – at least not yet.

  ‘I suggest we eat up and rest while we can. Tonight we’re going to need our wit, energy, and all the luck of Arafel,’ Max muttered, turning away to make a small camp.

  ***

  It was the absence of distinct birdsong I noticed at first. Almost as though they too sensed this was a place where life had sung its last song, where anything natural had been obliterated leaving only a hollow echo in its place. It was both mesmerizing and terrifying, making all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck lift in the breeze.

  For a moment we stood there, the three of us, staring out at the distant charred landscape interspersed with the creeping determination of the hardiest plants, fighting to reclaim their birthright. It had taken decades before any life had been spotted from a distance, the effect of cataclysmic biochemical warfare having rendered this part of the landscape scarred beyond recognition. But slowly nature was showing herself to be the victor.

  ‘We stick together, no solo heroics!’ Max spoke softly just behind me.

  He still hadn’t really forgiven me, but there was no misunderstanding him, and I felt the oddest sense of déjà vu. It was exactly what I remembered him saying in Pantheon, just before we faced Octavia’s guards and were separated.

  I nodded at Eli who was slowly surveying the dusky ruins. My brother had never been suited to combat of any kind, and it was a wrench to leave the care of his injured animals to a trusted friend in order to secretly help his sister trawl morbid, ruined cities. I touched his arm.

  ‘You don’t have to come. Max and I can cope. Camp here?’ I signed.

  He frowned, arching his eyebrows. ‘And wait for you two to run headlong into trouble because you’re too busy arguing? I don’t think so!’

  He crouched to release an injured salamander he’d been carrying up his sleeve for most of the journey.

  I glanced up and down the edge of darkening trees, like age-old sentries watching the landscape.

  Light was disappearing quickly now, although it was only around suppertime in Arafel. I pictured Mum sitting by the cooking pot by herself, and hoped Raoul had gone to keep her company as he often did when we were hunting in the outside forest. I’d left Mum a note. She’d never have agreed to the plan, and probably wouldn’t sleep until we got back. If we got back. I pushed the thought firmly from my mind.

  A barn owl hooted twice through the waiting quiet, like a siren. It felt significant in some way. And there was no reason to delay any more.

  We took our places beside each other, and as I narrowed my eyes against the glare of the dying sun, I muttered a silent prayer. There were a good couple of kilometres of lumpy arid dirt separating us from the start of the Dead City sprawl. Three of us to bring sixty souls back.

  It seemed a good return should we make it.

  There were no guarantees, of course; no one knew what the ruined city of Isca Pantheon was really like. But we were better equipped than the last time I left Arafel. Although there were no Di
asords between us, we’d brought weapons that we’d grown skilled at using every day of our lives: machetes, daggers, axes, bows and in my particular case, a certain well-used slingshot.

  We started out together, and I noticed the cool dirt crumbling beneath my leather-soled feet straight away. This was a thin, recovering topsoil, seemingly like the one Grandpa and his forebears had to coax back to rich life. It made for quick, stealthy progress, and the three of us broke into an easy hunting sprint across the amber landscape, towards the ruins.

  It was deceiving at first, the way the ground shifted, almost as though it could have been merely the impact of our running feet against the dehydrated earth; earth that hadn’t seen human feet for more than two hundred years. But then a pained cry razed the empty landscape, and the enemy was so close as to be laughable. The ground was moving. The cry belonged to Eli. And when I glanced in his direction, he was no long running.

  I froze instantly, my eyes straining against the fading light until I could make out his crumpled form on the ground. My heart rate doubled instantly. We were tree-runners; we never fell.

  ‘Eli?’

  My whisper died on my lips as Max caught my wrist.

  ‘Look at your feet,’ he forced through gritted teeth.

  And there was something in his voice that froze me to the spot. I levelled my gaze, and fixed on the earth beneath my feet. The earth that moved. And now that we were stationary, I couldn’t understand how I hadn’t felt it before. The earth wasn’t just moving; it was writhing.

  I peered harder. My mouth was as dry as the arid soil beneath my feet, and my blood echoed like a waterfall in my ears, but I was unable to break my gaze. Not until I made out the heaving mass of giant, overlapping pincers, just visible beneath the lumpy dirt; and their segmented tails, poised and ready to paralyse their ignorant prey at any given moment.

  ‘For the love of Arafel, fly!’ Max growled, as we lunged together, grabbing Eli and pulling him to his feet.

  Then, between us, we propelled him over the remaining barren land at breakneck speed. I bit down hard as our feet flew, now fully aware of the heaving mass of scorpion topsoil crunching beneath our thin-soled shoes. We gave no thought to the noise we were making, or obvious profile we were cutting across the barren landscape. Our only thought was to reach safety as quickly as possible. I clenched my fist around Eli’s lower back. At this rate we could expect a personal welcome from Cassius himself.

  It was only when the broken silhouette of the city outskirts loomed up out of the gloom that I allowed myself to hope. The ruin seemed quiet and still, but taking no chances, we made straight towards a large concrete boulder resting in the shadows. With one final effort, we half carried, half pushed Eli on top, before scrambling up ourselves. Then it was only us and the vast oppressive night.

  ‘Eli,’ I whispered, reaching across to my brother. He was curled up, motionless, and for a second blind panic clawed up my dry throat. Was he dead?

  Then he rolled over and lifted an eyelid to consider me carefully.

  ‘First time I’ve ever considered de-friending Hottentotta tamulus.’ He winced, his breath slightly laboured.

  ‘You’re stung?’ I scolded, reaching into my rations bag for some of the medical herbs we carried on us.

  ‘Yes, I’m also winded,’ he complained. ‘My feet barely touched the ground in the last part of that run.’

  Cursing, I scrambled in my leather bag. Two hundred years of living in a jungle climate meant we’d developed some natural antibodies against snake and spider bites, much stronger anti-venoms than our ancestors used to possess. All the same, the Hottentotta tamulus was one of the most venomous scorpions around.

  I pulled out my water bottle. ‘Where?’ I demanded.

  Eli rolled up his right trouser leg, revealing a raised red welt on the front of his calf. I tipped some cool water on a small rag, pressed some fresh meadowsweet into the wet patch and then placed it over the injury. He smiled gratefully, and squeezed my hand before taking over.

  ‘It’s not stinging so much already,’ he consoled. ‘Think I may have got lucky with a small one.’

  ‘Not sure any sized scorpion sting counts as luck!’ Max retorted. ‘And if this is just a warm-up for the Dead City, we’re gonna need so much more than luck.’

  I nodded grimly. Max was right. This wasn’t a good start. Eli’s leg wasn’t life-threatening, and so long as there were no other visible signs of shock, his body was coping. But the effect on his leg would probably slow us for a day or two – time we could ill afford to lose. And then there was a prophetic feeling I couldn’t shake. If this had happened to Eli, just about the most popular human in the animal kingdom I knew, what chance did Max and I stand if there were more of them?

  ‘We move slowly and as a team,’ I said, trying to control my spiralling fear.

  I hadn’t risked the wrath of Art just to become scorpion food. My head filled with his wise face. I hadn’t even told him about the theft of the Book of Arafel. There hadn’t been time, and I doubted it would change much, although he would have been sad and angry. But mostly I hadn’t told him because it would be like shining a light on my own ineptitude. I’d already broken my promise to Grandpa by letting others understand some of the legacy of the Book. Admitting to its loss felt like exacerbating my own sense of failure. Far better I put the situation right. Or at least tried to.

  For a few minutes we remained seated in the shadows, recovering our breath while the voice of the Dead City reached through the shadows. It moaned. Not in the biblical sense, although in some ways I wouldn’t have been surprised; it was so much bigger and more oppressive now it loomed up in front of us. Instead, the eerie groan was of nature herself, creaking through the rubble alleyways and broken roofs, and whistling through every decrepit gutter. As if she was warning that nothing should ever breathe or live here again.

  Silently, we examined the leather soles of our shoes, but somehow our slim goat-hide soles had protected us.

  I threw a glance at Eli. His face was filled with the same quiet foreboding I was feeling. We all understood the dangers of the forest, and had learned how to combat the most cunning cats, ferocious boar and shrewd snakes. But a sea of scorpions was new to me. It had to be nature’s response to the arid conditions in this part of the landscape, and might explain why the Prolet insurgents had become landlocked in this crumbling shell of a city.

  Silently, we bowed our heads together, an old Arafel custom to offer thanks for the sparing of a soul. There was no going back that way – that much was certain – and I couldn’t help but feel that this was the precise moment we were leaving Arafel behind. Was it for good? I pulled my trusted catapult from my leather pouch, and fought the sudden burning behind my eyes.

  ‘You think you can walk on it?’ I asked, as much to distract myself as anything else.

  He nodded. ‘And if not, Max can give me a shoulder ride!’

  I smiled as Max grimaced.

  ‘Yeah, right after you,’ he jibed. ‘Time to go?’ he added, crooking his neck to look into the darkness, while withdrawing a short, gleaming blade from his hunting belt.

  I frowned. Like most hunters in Arafel, Max could handle a knife, bow and fishing spear with practised ease. But he was particularly gifted when it came to knives, often dispatching prey from as far as fifty metres away. His precision and brute strength also made him a formidable adversary in combat, but this was different.

  I shot out a hand to pause his course, before loading a stone in my slingshot. Swiftly, I took aim and released so the stone flew through the broken archway into the darkness beyond. The hollow echo of the stone’s tumble filled the tense air, before it came to an abrupt standstill. My skin felt like a thousand scorpions were crawling across it, in some giant arachnid march. But there was no answer – nothing but the same chilling whistle of wind through the broken streets.

  There was no more reason to hesitate.

  Supporting Eli between us, we slipped off the
stone and stole forward together. And as we passed beneath the crumbling Gothic arch and into the shadowed ruin beyond, I was immediately struck by a cloud of grey oppression, despite the green moss and hardy creepers.

  The whistling moan of the wind was louder here, as though it belonged in the way life had once, whispering memories. Warning us. We stared around the ruined space in silent wonder. We’d made it; we were inside the Dead City. We were the first Outsiders from Arafel to have trodden here since the Great War, and we didn’t belong at all.

  Swallowing, I tried to get my bearings. This first building was large and rectangular, with several broken pillars splayed across the debris-strewn floor. They must have once supported a high-vaulted roof, at least twenty times the height of our treehouse.

  Briefly I wondered what purpose the space might have served, and then I spotted the parallel lines sunk into the floor a little way off. They were beyond rusted, and almost obscured by overgrowth, but I’d studied the old world enough to know I was looking at what our ancestors would have called a railway station.

  ‘Toxic boxes on wheels … They choked the earth and burned precious resources, making men fat and lazy …’

  I could hear Grandpa as though he was standing next to me, and his words seemed to resonate eerily in this overgrown crypt. The space rang with the echo of a thousand impatient footsteps that no longer bore any connection to our forest community. I felt my hands grow clammy. Our ancestors’ obsession with speed and technology hadn’t brought them freedom; it had trapped them for all eternity.

  ‘Let’s move,’ I whispered to Max. ‘There’s no living soul here.’

  Eli’s wan face gleamed in the thin moonlight, and I knew without asking that he, too, could hear the dead voices clamouring in this place.

  Max threw us both a cursory glance before stepping out in front, his sure feet cutting across the echoes, and pushing back the ghosts. He cut a diagonal line across the floor towards another crumbling stone arch, before beckoning that we should follow. We traced his path across the cracked, overgrown concrete to pass beneath another wide, intact arch with some kind of long oblong set into the wall. Up above, there was a series of smaller oblong boxes attached to the ceiling, some broken and dangling. I guessed them to be old-world computers of some sort, but to me they looked like nameless gravestones.