Ari Goes To War: (The Adventures of Ari #2)

by P. J. Sky

  The man dipped his eyes.

  “Alas, such a waste. So many lives wasted, down in those dark pits, and I was lost too. In the time when they called me the Bone Pointer. And I remember you too.” The man’s eyes slid up to hers. “Toiling in the same tunnels as your father, I wondered if you’d ever meet. You worked so hard, and with such dedication, deep in these tunnels, in the time when I allowed day and night to melt together. It was as if you and I shared the same passion for the black gold. But it was you who showed me the way. I foresaw that you would be my salvation, if I allowed it to happen. If I hadn’t set you free, no doubt at some point you would have found your father and then you would only have thought of him. But I knew you had to be free. You had to let him go.”

  “I…” A tear rolled down Ari’s cheek. All that time after her mother’s death her father had been in those same tunnels, chipping away at the same coal face. She began to hear a faint ringing in her ears.

  “Once you were gone,” the man continued, “I understood the true value of the gold I sought. I understood that, to love something truly one had to destroy it. Life is fire and destruction and only through these things can freedom be won. One must believe. And though I know not the true nature of the salvation you shall ultimately bring me, in you I must believe.”

  The man moved his hand to his chest.

  “For the bird to be free, one must open the cage.”

  Ari’s lips trembled. The ringing was getting louder. “You killed my Dad.”

  The man shook his head and tipped his hand, as if batting away a silent fly. “He worked so hard. One like you or he cannot live long in those tunnels; he died just as countless others did. But I let you live.”

  The man smiled. He glanced from Ari to Starla.

  “A Corinth and a Quinn; two fathers, one mother.” He looked back at Ari. “You see now why I had to bring Starla here. You will join your sister’s side, here, at the end of days. I understand it all now. It is all as I foresaw.”

  Ari began to see bursts of light like flashes of lightning. The ringing was getting louder. She tore her eyes from the Bone Pointer and her chest shuddered. Her eyes began to blur. She closed her eyelids and balled her fists into her eye sockets. The bursts of white light spasmed across her eyeballs.

  “Shush…” Starla was saying. She sounded like she was far away. Ari had the feeling of being submerged in water, as if swallowed up by those deep, dark pools.

  Ari felt Starla’s hands on her shoulders, warm and soft.

  “It’s all right,” said Starla. “I know, but you’re safe now. You’ve been on such a journey but you’re safe now.”

  My Dad was here, imprisoned in the very same mine. They took him from the plains, and then they took me. After Mum died, we dug coal from the same dark tunnels at the same time and never even knew it.

  Her fingers trembled, then she saw Bina’s face, smiling.

  Maybe you’ll be strong like me, maybe you’ll resist.

  It was the Bone Pointer’s fault.

  Ari lowered her fists. This time, in the Bone Pointer’s big, dark eyes she saw a pale monster hiding in the centre of a maze of tunnels, ancient and deformed, limbs like flippers, a round mouth of razor teeth and two small, bead-like black eyes. She saw an obsession that had grown from acquisition to consumption to destruction. A tiny creature that eats the world. And she saw Starla, lying on a stage, her eyes to the sky, the handle of a dagger sticking from her chest, a pool of red seeping around the vivid, colourful flowers.

  “It’s all going to be fine…” Starla was saying.

  The Bone Pointer closed his eyes and turned away.

  Ari shuddered, the image of Starla’s dead body imprinted on her eyeballs. She looked into Starla’s manic eyes; angry blood vessels spread out around their deep blue centres. Her pupils bulged, but instead of the deep pools of the Bone Pointer’s eyes, Starla’s seemed merely toe deep. And at the back of Ari’s mind something snagged. Her mother was dead, her father was dead, but her sister…

  Ari looked to the Bone Pointer.

  The Bone Pointer spoke. “I see you need more time. Come along, my dear child of the heretic star. We shall leave your sister, for now.”

  Starla withdrew her hands. “I’ll come back soon, don’t worry Ari, everything’s going to be fine now.”

  “But Starla, wait…”

  Ari could feel dread building in her stomach. She watched as the bars closed between them. The guard turned a key in the lock.

  Starla smiled. “Dear sister, to think you did always call me Sister.”

  But Ari could tell, Starla wasn’t home, and she was all alone, with that image, burnt into her soul, of Starla dead on that stage.

  Chapter 24

  “Now hold still.”

  Keshia held her arm out, palm faced upwards, and watched as Bina painted the red paste over her bandages.

  “Now, ya ‘ave to keep this straight an’ still for a while an’ let the paste dry.”

  Keshia nodded. As it soaked through the bandages, the paste felt damp and cold against her skin. “It’s been two days,” she said. “Two days, and she hasn’t come back.”

  Bina nodded. “Well, I warned her. Most ‘a time folks never come back.”

  “What happens to them?”

  “They go crazy, that’s what. They listen to the Bone Pointer’s words, they look into ‘is eyes, an’ it’s like they’re gone. It was the same in the mine. It’s how he gets people to do what he wants.”

  “And you think that’s happened to Ari?”

  Bina shrugged. “Well, she didn’t seem the type, but then what do I know?”

  “Thank you, by the way.”

  “What for?”

  “For looking out for me, and Ari.”

  “Well, I ain’t much good for much, so ya can thank me when this cast holds an’ when ya wrist's no longer broken.”

  “Will it take long to heal?”

  Bina nodded. “Most likely. Ya arm’ll itch like it’s full ‘a lice, all biting you at once. An’ it’ll be worse at night an’ when ya feel that, don’t take this off. That means it’s workin’, so keep it on, keep it straight, keep it safe. All right?” Bina raised her eyebrows.

  Keshia nodded. “Okay.”

  “You’re thinkin’ somethin’? I’m gettin’ to know ya, you’ve got that tell in ya eyebrows.”

  “It’s Ari, I can’t leave her there.”

  “An’ what ya think you're gonna do about it?”

  Keshia shrugged.

  “She ya sister or somethin’?”

  Keshia shook her head. “No. I mean, I don’t really know who she is.”

  “How’d you girls come to be travelin’ together?”

  “Well, mostly I didn’t have any other place to go. I met Ari on the streets. I think she was hiding out from the war too. There’s a lot of bad people on the streets of Bo, but Ari wasn’t one of them. So, I guess I kinda latched onto her when she didn’t tell me where to go.”

  Bina finished painting the paste over Keshia’s bandages. She scraped her knife on the edge of the plate.

  “So tell me kid, wha’ makes ya think Ari hasn’t found what she’s lookin’ for over at that mine an’ that’s why she ain’t come back?”

  Keshia shook her head. “She’s on a rescue mission. On rescue missions you don’t stay and you don’t leave people behind.”

  ∆∆∆

  The compound seemed ancient. Towards the edge of the road, Keshia found an old sign:

  Joint Defence Facility.

  Keshia wondered what a Joint Defence Facility was. The compound appeared to contain no guns or other recognisable weapons. If there were once fences or walls, these were long gone.

  On the far side were the frames of what once must have been buildings. Now, all that remained were the skeletal forms of concrete columns bristling with rusty metal spikes. There was a wall, torn and scratched, as if it had been attacked by some wild animal.

  The domes themselv
es, more like spheres, like landlocked moons tethered to the earth, differed in size and sat mostly intact though their metal structures looked far more delicate than the buildings. It was as if the compound was once attacked and the buildings were destroyed, but when it came to the domes, the invaders stopped, unable to destroy something so unique.

  Keshia wondered if perhaps they were temples? Perhaps they once contained the divine objects of some lost deity of a long-lost tribe? These shrines might represent some kind of defence against the Bone Pointer, and maybe in retaliation the Bone Pointer had once attacked the compound?

  More importantly, thought Keshia, perhaps these divine objects were worth something?

  Each dome had a set of metal steps that led up to a doorway. Most of the doors were gone; some were replaced with curtains. Inside each dome, only half the space was actually accessible. The other half was screened off by what appeared to be a giant, convex dish that seemed to be on hinges. The joints were rusty and Keshia could see no obvious way of turning them. She wondered if the divine objects were still locked on the other side of these dishes, awaiting some future thieves better equipped for the task.

  It was under these convex dishes that the people Bina had escaped with had, however briefly, tried to make their homes. Keshia found moth-eaten blankets and threadbare rugs, burnt cooking pots and the stubs of melted candles. In one of the domes she found a pickaxe with a head like a chipped tooth. With her left hand, she lifted the handle and felt its dead weight. She could take it with her and use it as a weapon, but it was far too heavy and conspicuous for her to carry it all that way, especially with only one arm and not the good one at that. It would be near to useless.

  Next to the pickaxe, under a layer of dust, she found a small, square box. She knelt and wiped away the thick dust with her fingers. Underneath, the smooth surface was purple. She slid aside the tiny, metal catch and lifted the lid. Inside, a miniature figure unfolded. As it began to spin, on one tiny foot, a tune started to play. The notes sounded like a series of tiny bells being struck, one after another.

  Ting, ting-ting, ting, ting, ting… Ting, ting-ting, ting, ting, ting…

  The tune seemed to bounce around the empty hollow of the dome, as if each note were a speck of silver stardust. The miniature figure held both arms above its head and wore what looked like a tiny pink dress that ballooned around its waste.

  Keshia tilted her head and watched the tiny dancer spin. She smiled. Gradually, the music began to slow until both it and the spinning dancer stopped. The silence reinvaded the dome, and Keshia could hear the wind blow between the empty avenues and forgotten signposts. She reached out and tried to turn the tiny dancer with her fingers but it wouldn’t budge. She closed the lid and lifted it again but the box and its dancer remained silent, as if, in one final gasp, it had expended its last ounce of energy. Now it was dead, like everything else.

  Closing the box again, Keshia moved on to a second, this one made of cardboard. She opened the flaps, peered inside, and grinned.

  Well, she thought, now these I can find a use for.

  She shook her head as she counted the contents of the box.

  Ari, she thought, you really should have searched this place before you left for the mine. A canteen and a robe will have only got you so far.

  To Keshia, the fact that Ari evidently hadn’t searched the compound only highlighted the increasingly likelihood that she was in trouble.

  When Keshia had asked, Bina had sighed and, taking a metal rod, on the dusty ground by her feet she’d sketched out a map of the mine.

  “Many ‘a season has passed since I was there,” said Bina, “mind, I doubt it’ll have changed that much.”

  Keshia nodded as she inspected the markings on the ground.

  “This’ll be the lift tower,” explained Bina, pointing a stick at a small cross. “This is the railway station. I think the lines run all the way to Alice. There’s ridges all around here. It used to be heavily guarded, but seeing as the pit’s still burning, it might well be abandoned now.”

  “I know she’s in trouble, you know.”

  “Well, like ya keep sayin’.” Bina avoided Keshia’s gaze.

  “She shouldn’t have gone alone. I’ll go in the morning.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t come back,” said Bina. “You’ll do the same as everyone else.”

  Keshia felt a lump form in her throat. “You could come too.”

  Bina smirked. “Hah, me? Don’t ya worry about me. I likes my own company. I’ll be fine thanks. It’s you I’m worried about. Remember, you’re only a kid an’ ya only got one arm, an’ likely as not, the Bone Pointer’s words’ll get ya like they does everyone else.”

  Keshia shrugged. “I have to try.”

  “I know child, an’ I ain’t ya mama so do as ya must, I ain’t gonna stop ya. But you be careful now.”

  ∆∆∆

  As if to separate themselves from his actions, like cruel children on a playground, the followers had formed a ring around the condemned man who sat on his knees in the dust. The wind had changed direction, clearing the smoke, and now the sun beat down mercilessly.

  Starla pleaded with the Morning Star. “Ari came here for you. She even wore a white robe.” She thought of Ari, locked alone in her cell, separated from the world above.

  “My child,” said the Morning Star, “I do not doubt you. But there are always two motives to any action, the one you are aware of, and the one deep in your soul. For your sister, they must match. For now she is lost, I cannot release her from my cage until she chooses to release herself from her own.”

  Starla nodded. It wasn’t that she understood the words he’d said exactly, more that she’d felt them. She knew he was right, and she didn’t need to know why, for his conversation so rarely left room open to debate. She looked towards the condemned man. He looked thin and hungry and a little saliva dripped down his stubbly chin. His hood was drawn back and dark blotches formed on his bare scalp. Above his head, Starla watched the thin halo change from yellow to blue.

  She now saw these colours above people’s heads with increasing frequency. Sometimes, they also glowed around people’s hands. The Morning Star’s own glow was one of pure white, like the light of a fallen star, landlocked and walking the earth as a man. Before coming here Starla had not seen these haloes, but the more time she spent with the Morning Star the more vivid the haloes became, as if his presence activated some previously dormant region of her brain.

  The condemned man’s bony fingers shook. The blue halo above his head deepened.

  “I understand you stole,” said the Morning Star in that smooth, careful tone. “Such crimes cannot go unpunished.”

  The man’s lips trembled. He nodded. “I…”

  The Morning Star held up his hand. “I understand, my child. One cannot spend one’s life within the proximity of fire without acquiring the scent of smoke. You spent all those years in the world beyond this place, in that land of chaos and corruption, of lies and deceit.” The Morning Star sighed and gently shook his head. “I blame myself. I often forget, but in hindsight you could not have known any better.”

  The man nodded.

  The Morning Star stepped into the circle. He placed his big palm over the man’s scalp.

  “I forgive you, my child.” He looked to the men and women of the circle. “His soul is now pure. This man will go ahead.”

  The Morning Star removed his palm from the man’s scalp.

  “Bring flowers. Beautify him.”

  The Morning Star turned his back on the man. The men and women of the circle, his devout followers, came forwards and placed rings of flowers around the man’s neck and upon his head.

  The man kept his eyes to the back of the Morning Star’s pale head. “Sire, I didn’t mean to.”

  “No one ever does. Have faith, my child. You must have faith.” He turned his head and looked to the men and woman of the circle. “My children, you know what to do.”

 
From their robes, each drew their ceremonial daggers.

  Starla’s eyes widened. Her fingers moved to her own; simple, a sliver of sharpened steel. Her index finger rested on the leather handle

  The Morning Star turned back and began to walk away from the circle. The blue halo above the man’s head began to fade, as if already the life was beginning to drain from him.

  Starla hesitated. She could never move further than here, something always held her back. She watched the haloes above the people’s heads turn from pink to red.

  Starla remembered something Ari had said; when people die they return to the earth. But the Morning Star said they ascended to the stars. In fact, he said they didn’t die at all, they were simply freed from this mortal torment. And this made perfect sense.

  This man was going ahead.

  Still, Starla moved her hand no closer to her dagger. She stayed where she was, never able to move closer.

  The others moved in until the man in the centre had disappeared beneath a scrum of dusty robes and flashing steel.

  Chapter 25

  Through the thin crosshairs of his binoculars, Commander Krebs watched the girl in the blue robe drift among the white-robed followers. He was certain the Bone Pointer was keen to make his prize visible. He lowered his binoculars and turned to his lieutenant.

  “So, the target is still in place?”

  The lieutenant swallowed and nodded.

  “An’ ya supposed to remind me that our benefactor’s specific condition was that we not attack while the target is in place?”

  The lieutenant’s bottom lip started to quiver. He nodded again.

  Krebs slapped the binoculars into his lieutenant’s hands.

  “Well, we can’t wait here forever, can we?”

  The Commander put his hands to his hips and inspected his armada of military vehicles, all spread out in a wide crescent below. Oblong, open top trucks, minus three. Cooking-pot tanks, their turrets like pan handles, aimed towards the mine, and missile launchers, happily able to hit any passing aircraft, or perhaps the Bone Pointer’s stage. They’d already set their targets.