by P. J. Sky
She took a deep breath and started to climb the remaining terraces.
Chapter 28
From the other side of the cell, Ari watched the lion’s big, round chest rise and fall and its long, brush like tail flap limply in its sleep. Despite the presently docile nature of the animal, nothing could bring her to sleep while the animal remained in her cell.
She looked to the bars. She was on her own. Starla, like everyone else here, was firmly under the Bone Pointer’s spell. She’d be of no help to her, but Ari had to save her somehow. She had to beat the Bone Pointer.
Tears formed beneath her eyelids.
Dag it, Ari, you gotta be stronger than this.
She tried to swallow down the lump in her throat. In her mind’s eye, she saw the milky-eyed man’s one good eye bulge as she’d plunged the blade between his ribs. She shuddered as she remembered that second thrust and the way the knife had scraped between the ribs.
The Bone Pointer made me like this, she thought. I might have been something else, but he turned me into a killer. He never gave me no other choice. And because of that, he got Jirra and Koora killed too. It weren’t my fault, it was his. But I saved Starla before and I’ll do it again if I have to, ‘cause Bone Pointer, if it’s war you want then it’s war you’ll get.
She sniffed and wiped away her tears.
Why am I crying anyway? I ain’t got nothing to cry about.
She still felt the cold hand pressed around her heart; the one that had slipped in there after she’d sunk the blade between the ribs.
“Dag it.”
She watched the lion’s chest expand.
“I bet ya never had to figure this out. If folks disagreed with ya, all ya gotta do is eat ‘em, or lick ‘em, an either way it’s sorted. Then ya go to sleep an’ don’t worry about it no more.”
I gotta be like the lion, she thought. I gotta be strong, and brave, and sometimes I’ve gotta be loving, and sometimes I’ve gotta be vicious. Right now, I reckon I gotta be both. I can’t be one without the other, see. If I’m gonna save Starla, I gotta go up against the Bone Pointer.
Then she thought of the Maker. “Hah, Maka ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, this is between me an’ the Bone Pointer.”
She heard movement; a scuffling somewhere in the darkness on the other side of the bars. Ari froze. It must have been the guard, or Starla returning. Whoever it was, she didn’t want them waking the lion. Then, from the shadows, a shallow voice whispered.
“Hey, Ari.”
Ari’s heart leapt.
“Kid, is that you?”
Like a spectre from another time, impossible and yet right in front of her, appeared Keshia’s grubby, round face. Ari wasn’t sure she’d ever been so pleased or surprised to see someone.
Keshia grinned and nodded towards the lion. “You made a friend?”
Ari slid herself towards the bars. “Kid, how? What ya doin’ ‘ere?”
“Well, around here security seems to be pretty lax. Wearing this robe, I can pretty much go anywhere I want and no one questions me. And, well, this was one of the only places I could find that was actually guarded, and you know what? The guard was asleep.”
“Nice goin’, kid.” Ari nodded to the cast. “How’s the arm?”
Keshia shrugged. “It hurts all the time. But I’ll live.”
“Good on ya, can ya get me outa here?”
“Why do you think I’m here? I knew you’d get yourself into some kind of trouble.” Keshia inspected the lock. “Hmmm.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a small, shiny object. Her cross. She held it up between her finger and thumb. “Good thing you gave this back.”
Ari watched as Keshia pushed the metal cross into the lock and used her left hand to twist it. “Thanks, by the way, you know, for returning this.”
Ari shrugged. “Whatever, hurry up will ya.”
Keshia strained the cross against the lock. “What did you think I was doing? You know, this isn’t easy with only one hand.”
The lion grumbled. Ari’s heart leapt and her eyes shot to the animal. The lion yawned and its sleepy eyes half opened then closed again. It flapped its brush-like tail limply.
“So do big cats sleep even more than little ones?” asked Keshia.
“How do I know?”
“Well, you seem to be in a unique position to answer that.”
“Just get the door open.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Click.
Keshia slid the door open and grinned.
Ari sprang to her feet. She slipped out of the cell and slid the door closed between them and the lion. She released a long sigh, one she felt like she’d been holding onto ever since the lion had been locked inside the cell with her. She looked down at Keshia. “Now wha’, kid?”
“Well, let’s just say I came here better prepared than you. See, if you’re really set on saving Starla, I reckon you're going to need a distraction.”
Ari narrowed her eyes. “Wha’ ya got in mind?
Keshia slipped the rucksack from her shoulder, loosened the straps, and showed Ari its contents.
Ari grinned. “Kid, may the Maka bless ya.”
Chapter 29
Back outside, Keshia could have sworn that dusk was falling early. The wind still blew away from the basin, clearing the smoke from the path of the afternoon sun, yet the colours seemed muted and the shadows seemed deeper, as if somehow the daylight was being drained away.
Against the flow, Keshia made her way back through the crowds of white-robed followers. Everyone seemed to be moving down the ridges towards the basin and she had to duck out of people’s way. No one seemed to pay any notice of her. She scurried up the ridge, her feet slipping on the dry scree, and worked her way back down the stepped terraces. She stumbled on the dry rubble and slid down to the base of the lift tower. She slipped the rucksack from her shoulder and loosened the straps.
From what Keshia had found in the compound, it was evident that Bina’s story had some truth; there had indeed been miners staying at the compound. They’d brought with them what they could carry; things they’d saved or found or stolen and kept for years maybe, hidden away in some corner of those dark tunnels, in the hopes of one day using them as a means of escape.
With her left hand, Keshia reached inside the sack and drew out the first stick of dynamite.
∆∆∆
From behind the doorway of her cell, Ari waited for the guard to enter.
It can’t be so long now, she thought. Someone’s gotta check up on me sometime.
Finally, someone entered. Stepping from behind the doorway, and with the base of her palm, Ari struck the guard at the back of the neck. The guard folded to the floor like a sack of salt.
Ari knelt and pulled back the hood. The guard with the black eye patch. She grinned.
“Ya had that comin’, an sorry ‘bout this, but I’m gonna need ya robe.”
When Ari was done, she looked up and saw the lion inspecting her with those big, amber eyes. It slid its pink tongue along its lips.
“We’re only what the Bone Pointer makes us, aye?” She looked down at the guard. “Well, don’t eat ‘im all at once.”
∆∆∆
Once outside, Ari tucked herself deep into the hood of her red robe and hastened through the crowds of white-robed followers. A strange calm had fallen over the followers and they now drifted, wide-eyed, towards the stage, their arms limp at their sides and their heads tilted upwards, as if lost in some kind of trance.
Meanwhile, the sky grew darker. Ari had no perception of whether she was closer to the start or end of the day; in the cave, the rhythms of time had lost all meaning, in the same way they had when she’d been trapped down in the mine, all those years ago, but even though the light was fading it still didn’t feel like dusk. This was something different, like nothing she’d experienced before.
Ari watched the thousands of followers take up positions on their knees before the Bone Pointer’s sta
ge. The guards in red stood at the edge and Ari decided she needed to do the same; anything else would be too conspicuous. She weaved her way through the kneeling followers and took a position near the front of the stage with a clear view of both the stage and the basin right up to the ridge. Then the humming began.
The ominous waves rippled over the audience. Ari thought of a plague of locusts; multiplying, buzzing, and devouring everything. These people could be helping themselves, and instead they were on their knees before this murderer, prepared even to worship him. Ari didn’t know whether to pity or loathe them. They were the enablers. Their presence, however innocent, was support for all the terrible things the Bone Pointer had done to her and her father and so many others. These people weren’t victims, they were collaborators.
Ari wondered how he’d done it. How had the Bone Pointer brought these people here? For all those years, his roving caravans had rounded people up and enslaved them in the mine, but now that was all over. These people could have left yet they had chosen to stay, and instead of shrinking, their numbers had grown. Bina had talked about people passing through on their way to the mine to listen to what the Bone Pointer had to say, and what he had to say had kept them here. But were these people so desperate that they’d seek salvation in a monster? A liar who accused others of lying? And was their desperation enough to excuse them being here? Ari wasn’t sure, but in that moment she loathed these humming locusts as much as she did the Bone Pointer himself. After all, it was these people who’d dragged her to the floor and beaten her before she’d any chance to speak.
From the back of the stage, the dark figure emerged; his black cloak blowing in the breeze and his head as white as bone. Ari squeezed her fingers around the shaft of the spear and imagined plunging its blackened head into the Bone Pointer’s gut, or maybe sliding her blade up the soft patch just below the ribcage.
I could do it, she thought, I’ve done it before, and in the moment, there ain’t nothing to it.
Following close behind, was the blue-robed figure of Starla.
Ari’s heart began to race.
She watched them pick their way through the carpet of coloured flowers. The Bone Pointer stepped to the edge of the stage. Starla stood a little behind him. Her dark hair blew in the wind, like a black standard. In the strange light, her pale skin looked almost as white as the Bone Pointer’s, her lips drained of colour. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue that was almost black. It was as if she were slowly transforming into the Bone Pointer.
Any way I can, I’ve gotta get her away from him.
Ari cast her eyes between the stage and the tower. The tallest structure for miles, this skeletal form remained like a forgotten monument to another time. Beside it, just visible from behind the ridge, were the silver silos that, in the drained light, had lost their chrome-like shine.
The Bone Pointer raised his hands and the humming stopped.
“I am the Morning Star… My friends, after all these years of watching and waiting, of hoping, of suffering, of enduring the pain and hardships and wretchedness of this world, the sacred hour is finally upon us and I am here to guide you home.”
He shot a long, pale finger to the sky.
“Look at the sun, see how it mocks us. See how it burns us as it burns this world. For five centuries it has been merciless and unforgiving. But its hour of reckoning is here. Soon, the moon will eat the sun, and this world of suffering shall come to an end. But we shall not be here. The moon will eat the sun, a hole in the sky will open, and we shall ascend to our place in the stars.”
Ari looked up to the sky, to the drained sun, so high and yet at least half as bright now as it should have been. The air was growing cooler and she shuddered.
Perhaps, she thought, this really is the end of the world?
Ari pulled the red robe closer.
Well, if this is the end of the world then they will have to fight to take me with it. Because an afterlife with the Bone Pointer don’t feel like no life I want to be living. And with all these sheep too, she thought, looking to the blank-faced followers, it really ain’t for me.
Then something caught Ari’s eye. In the sky, in the direction of Freehaven, something had glinted.
Was it a star?
As Ari watched, it appeared again.
It was too much to hope for, surely.
It was growing larger, as if it was getting closer, and it was taking the form of an upturned teardrop.
But it couldn’t be, could it?
“My children,” the Bone Pointer continued. “The armies of the snake are coming. Even now, they crawl across the land like a cancer, but do not fear them. They are the non-believers, they will be swept away as this world dissolves, but we shall already be gone. For we have faith; we shall ascend…”
Ari kept watching the shape in the sky. How many balloons were there anyway? She had only ever seen one before. She tilted her head and squinted. The balloon winked.
“…For nothing can stop us now.”
Then the tower exploded.
∆∆∆
Hunched just beneath the cylindrical body of the silo, Keshia had shielded herself from the first explosion. The deep, hollow crash buffeted along the abandoned railway cars. She felt the heat of the flames and her heart raced. Like a hard rain, tiny loose rocks hammered the roof of the empty silo and an oily stench filled the air. Peeking out from under the silo, Keshia grinned. But she didn’t have long to inspect her handiwork; her second wick had been longer but she knew it wouldn’t last much longer.
On her backside, Keshia shuffled along the underside of the silo, to the far end, and slipped from her rucksack two more sticks of dynamite. At the base of the silo, she wedged both sticks between the curved metal casing and the webbed support structure. Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she felt the small fire-starter and flint. She held her breath.
∆∆∆
Ari jumped. She looked towards the tower. Orange fire plumed into the air. Then, like a sudden thunderclap, the second explosion shattered the air. The tower gave out a metallic screech, like the dying cries of a demented crow, and began to topple towards the crowd. In a great wave, the followers scrambled to their feet. It was as if the Bone Pointer’s spell had broken and all at once people were running in every direction.
Before Ari could catch her breath, a third explosion tore through one of the silos. Black smoke churned into the air. Ari stood frozen, jaw open, unable to pull her eyes from the devastation.
“My children…” shouted the Bone Pointer. Panicked cries drowned the words that followed.
Boommmm…
The ground rocked with a fourth explosion. The air was full of the acrid tang of burning. A bubble of orange flame pealed into the sky. Excitement rose in Ari’s chest.
Run… Ari… Now…
Chapter 30
Ari clenched her fists and, like a fleeing ostrich, she barged through the frantic crowds and leapt onto the stage. Her feet slipped on the dead flowers. The Bone Pointer still seemed to be focused on the audience, his arms outstretched, crying something inaudible.
Head down, Ari grabbed Starla around the waist and kept on going, right off the other side of the stage. They both tumbled onto the ground below.
Starla screamed. “No, no.” With her fists, she began hitting Ari’s arms.
Ari didn’t let go. She dragged herself to her feet and pulled Starla deeper into the crowd. When she looked up, she caught a glimpse of the Bone Pointer. He was pointing down at them, his hand shaking, bellowing something lost in the shouts and screams of his followers.
Through the maelstrom of people, Starla still kicking and screaming, Ari dragged her on. Moving through the crowds towards them, Ari caught sight of the burnt heads of spears. She pulled Starla to the ground, clambered on top of her and pressed her hand over her mouth.
Starla wriggled beneath her, her eyes wide, and thumped her fists against Ari’s chest.
“Ya gotta wake up sister. We gotta get out o
f here.”
Starla clutched Ari’s shoulders and tried to push her away. Her fingers scratched down Ari’s neck. Ari felt Starla’s teeth against her palm and Starla bit into the skin. Ari winced and drew back her hand. Starla cried out. “Master, master.”
Ari slapped Starla across the cheek. Red fingerprints seeped to the surface of the skin.
“I’m sorry sister, but ya gotta snap out of it.”
Starla’s eyes widened and she thumped Ari’s shoulder. Ari drew her hand back and slapped her again.
Starla’s lip started to bleed. Her eyes narrowed and her pupils shrunk. “Ari?”
“Is that you, sister?”
Starla nodded.
Ari grabbed Starla’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “We gotta get outa’ ‘ere.”
Black smoke inked the darkening sky. Over the heads of the crowd, Ari could see the balloon descending. She dragged Starla on through the crowds, towards the ridge and the fields and the direction of the balloon.
Starla tugged at Ari’s hand. “Wait…”
“This way,” said Ari and pulled Starla away from the path of two red-robed guards. “Keep ya head down.”
The guards disappeared in the surge of people. Ari dragged Starla up the ridge, towards the water silos and the fields. The crowds now seemed to be surging back towards the Bone Pointer, like a river changing course, as if running to his protection. Ari and Starla had to weave between them.
“Where are we going?” asked Starla.
“We got a way out.”
I hope we have, anyway, she thought.
“But we can’t…” said Starla.
At the top of the slope, they passed the water silos and the upturned tables once laden with bread, and then the line of bare skulls on metal spikes, a coloured flower in each eye socket. Random robed followers drifted over the fields as if lost, or stood and stared at the source of the inky, black smoke. Ari dragged Starla onwards across the neatly sown troughs. She could see the captain’s balloon, patched and deformed and covered in thick scars, but still it was clearly the same balloon. She watched it descend onto a patch of ground just beyond the ditch.