Faster Than Falling: The Skylighter Adventures

by Nathan Van Coops

  The dim glow shimmered faintly on the rippling water. The walls of the mountain itself were disturbing it. A steady flow of sand pouring down one side of the cave was pooling into a giant dune. The sand ran over itself in rivulets till it skittered off the end of the dune and into the water. From there it washed downstream and disappeared again into the darkness.

  Atlas saw a way out.

  Up in the circle of dim light, near the cavern ceiling, there was a rope. He couldn’t imagine its purpose, as it was so high up he saw no way to reach it, but someone must have put it there. People must use it somehow.

  The rope was almost as black as the cavern. It swayed gently, due in part to a shiny sphere bobbing at its end. Once again, Atlas could divine no purpose to the item, but he wished he could reach it nonetheless. Could he use it to get out somehow? Was it an escape route? He stood near the water’s edge and tried to see up the hole.

  Something whizzed past his head, followed by a tiny thump.

  He looked down and saw a metallic object with a bit of leather cord sticking out of the sand. Whatever it was had just barely missed him. He crouched down to investigate and tugged on the cord.

  A key.

  As he crouched there, trying to decipher the purpose of the key and its mysterious appearance, something else incredible happened. A girl came tumbling out of the sky.

  She was some kind of daredevil acrobat, catching hold of the very last bit of the rope and swinging around by a mechanical contraption tied to her body. She swung about the cavern, spinning and twirling till finally she seemed to notice him.

  “Hey! That’s mine!”

  Atlas didn’t care that the key was hers. He was far more interested in where she had just fallen from.

  “Where did you come from?” he yelled. “What’s up there?”

  “It’s a sky city!”

  Sky city. What kind of sky city? A friendly one where he could get help, and medicine for Kipling, or a city full of raiders?

  “Are there airships?” he asked.

  “Lots of them!”

  He scanned the walls for any kind of stairs or a path up.

  “How do I get there? Is it far?” Wherever this place was, it sounded like his best option.

  The girl continued to twirl. Her hair flew around her face in little wisps. He had a hard time making out exactly what she looked like. She was dressed like a boy, but was still as pretty as any girl he knew.

  “You have to fly!” the girl shouted.

  Did she mean there were airships that went up and down this hole? Perhaps that meant he could get the Sun Dragon up this way.

  The girl was getting farther away. The rope was being pulled up and out the top of the cavern, and her with it. He wasn’t ready for her to leave. He still had so many questions. But she was the one who asked first.

  “What’s your name?” she yelled.

  He could barely make her out in the distance now. “Atlas!”

  He cupped his hands and shouted again. “What’s yours?” The girl was out of sight now, up past the rocks, and he couldn’t get nearer because of the river. A sound echoed down the cavern walls but he couldn’t make out the words over the burble of the river and the subtle shushing of the sand cascading down the rocks.

  He stood there for a while, holding the key and waiting to see if perhaps the rope would come back down, but it never did.

  After a few minutes, he followed the edge of the river till he could nearly see straight up the hole in the ceiling, but he still couldn’t make out the top.

  It had to be up there somewhere. If the girl had come down, how far could it be? He’d find a way up it somehow.

  He considered his options.

  If the rope did come back down, maybe he could ask the girl for help. Ask her to lift Kipling out. If he couldn’t find a way to bring the Sun Dragon to this cavern, he might at least benefit from the knowledge of someone who knew the caverns better than he did. He could map it, and get the airship out later. He’d have to work quickly, however. The Skylighter boy was fading fast and their lights weren’t going to last much longer. This cavern was his best chance.

  He picked his way over the sand and up the rocks, then back through the hole he had emerged from. He moved slowly again, not only because he didn’t want to stumble into a den of nightbeasts unannounced, but also so he wouldn’t end up down a wrong passage. There was no time for getting lost.

  Atlas finally reached the tunnel where he had left Kipling, but there was no light coming from it.

  “Oh no,” Atlas muttered and raced along the passage. He skidded to a stop at the section of wall he had constructed to barricade Kipling in. It was a mess. The stones he’d piled up at the entrance of the alcove were scattered and the lantern was lying cracked and unlit on the floor.

  Kipling was gone.

  Atlas searched the alcove with grim determination, but found no sign of the boy. His fear that Kipling had been taken and eaten by the scarab crabs seemed unlikely. There was no blood. No evidence of a struggle, other than the broken-down wall.

  A tuft of brown fur was fluttering against his boot. From Fledge?

  What in the world had happened?

  Kipling had been unconscious. Weak. Certainly in no condition to be tearing down walls and vanishing. Where had he gone?

  Atlas headed around the corner into the larger cavern where he had anchored the Sun Dragon, hoping Kipling and the cliff fox had simply made their way back there.

  When he rounded the corner and lifted the lantern, his heart sank. A scarab crab was facing the other direction and picking at a bit of detritus caught between the rocks, but there was no airship.

  The Dragon.

  Atlas swung the lantern side to side to see if perhaps it had simply come untethered and drifted off to another part of the cave. The lateral fin had been bent, but the ship was still floating when he left it.

  The scarab crab turned in the light and appraised Atlas with its glossy black eyes. Atlas shivered and backed up a step. What now?

  The flame on the lantern was growing dim and the scarab was taking more interest in him.

  This was bad.

  The Dragon had been his only hope of getting to Enzo. Now he’d be lucky to get out of this cavern alive.

  The flame of the lantern flickered and began to smoke. Atlas set the lantern down, whipped off his leather jacket and tore at his shirtsleeve. It took a bit of help from his teeth, but he was able to quickly rip the fabric off his arm, tearing it away from the seam at his shoulder. He formed the fabric into a ball and skewered it onto the end of his harpoon. From there it was a matter of lifting the glass housing of the lantern carefully enough to not extinguish the already perilous flame.

  The cave had sunk into darkness, and somewhere ahead of him, claws clacked on stones.

  The fabric caught fire and sputtered to life. He raised his makeshift torch just in time to press back the advance of the scarab crab. The creature dodged to the side, then retreated a few steps. Atlas backed up, too. He gathered up his jacket and worked his way blindly backward till he got a hand against the cavern wall. From there he felt along it, still keeping his eyes on the scarab and his torch aimed directly at it.

  He found the entrance to the passage and sprinted inside. The scarab followed.

  It was only when Atlas was partway down the passage that he realized it wasn’t the one he had come from. This passage sloped steadily upward, making progress difficult. He alternated the torch from front to rear as he fled, keeping danger behind him at bay, while simultaneously trying to navigate the tunnel.

  The Sun Dragon was gone. How was that possible? There was no way Kipling could have taken it, unless . . . what if Kipling hadn’t really been unconscious when he left? Was it all some kind of act? What if the feverishness and fainting was all an elaborate ruse, so he could steal the airship?

  But why? They were already traveling together. And how could he have flown away in the dark, and with a busted lateral fin
?

  The situation baffled him. Atlas shrugged back into his jacket. As he climbed steadily through the passage, he tried desperately to identify the sounds in the tunnel behind him. Was the scarab in pursuit? Were there more? Or perhaps some other creature had joined the chase. His torch was nearly out. He’d soon be finding out the answer in the dark. The thought goaded him into running faster. So much so that he rounded a corner at full speed and almost ran off the edge of a cliff.

  Atlas teetered on the precipice and watched the pebbles he’d dislodged go skittering downhill.

  Ahead of him was a vast pit, hundreds of feet across, lit by fading daylight. For the first time in hours, he could see the sky. The pit was part of a vast gorge that somewhat resembled the Rift back home, but the walls of this gorge were perforated with dozens of holes, many of them lit with lanterns and bustling with activity. Heavy ropes dangled down the cliff walls and supported scaffolding and rickety, winch-driven elevators.

  Atlas gaped at the complexity of the scene.

  Pathways along the cliff walls linked the various openings, some of them as narrow as goat trails, but it didn’t impede the progress of the people using them. They were miners. Lots of miners, swarming in and out of passages like ants. It was difficult to make out the details of the work in the fading light, but it was evident that they were dragging ore from the mine and hauling it away toward a blackened end of the gorge where great fires were burning and coating the cliff walls with soot. A cloud of smoke wafted up from the distant smelters and drifted north into the twilight.

  Atlas had emerged from a disused section of tunnels midway up the cliff face. The action was all taking place on the canyon floor as gaunt miners loaded ore into metal carts and pushed them along the road to the smelters.

  The last bit of shirtsleeve on his harpoon fizzled and went out as it fell from the tip of the weapon. Atlas took another look down the passage, but could see nothing. Somewhere inside, claws scratched on rocks and echoed down the passage, but no creatures dared the light of the mine. At least not yet.

  Atlas moved cautiously away from the passage, uninterested in being dragged back into the darkness by some especially courageous scarab. Whatever his next direction of travel, it wouldn’t be back through that tunnel.

  A horn sounded overhead and drew his attention to the skyships hovering over the mine. They were small craft, capable of carrying no more than five or ten people but they were illuminating the gorge with periodic light. The aircraft had fires aboard, and seemed to be using the heat to keep themselves aloft. They also deflected the glow from the onboard fires via curved mirrors to highlight different sections of the mine in sequence. The lights swept over the holes with the most activity.

  “All out, now!” someone shouted. “Final call! Close up those tool carts!”

  The shouting was coming from a craft, hovering near the center of the gorge. The men aboard were all dressed alike, in coats with shiny buttons and sabers at their sides. They looked significantly better fed than the miners and their clothes bore none of the soot and grime.

  Other men in uniform stalked the walls. They clustered in groups toting long lances and a few held shields. Some of them carried whips. A promontory jutting over the mine was outfitted with a mechanical contraption bristling with harpoons. A man seated in the machine swiveled it about, aiming the business end of the device at various tunnels in turn. At first Atlas thought it was a weapon for use against nightbeasts, but then he realized it was being aimed at the miners themselves.

  His attention didn’t linger long on the machine, because something new was entering the gorge. Multiple somethings. Overhead, rounding a bend in the gorge from the west, was a massive black airship. It had a red sunburst on its nose and was followed by a couple of other smaller craft. It motored through the gorge sending rumbling vibrations along the cliffs. Atlas could only glimpse a few of the crew in the rigging, but what caught his attention was a smaller ship, partially disassembled and lashed to the rear of the hull. Even without the distinctive coloring and hand painted name emblazoned on the tail fin, he would have recognized the ship anywhere. The Sunshine Express.

  Enzo!

  Atlas’s heart sped up, along with his thoughts. He had to get up there. He could find his grandfather. This was his opportunity.

  He’d lost the Sun Dragon and Kipling. He’d lost nearly every asset and tool he’d come with, but he still had a chance. He just needed to seize it.

  The ship was making for a passage in the rocks at the south end of the mine. No matter its destination, it would have to make a turn to avoid the fiery smoke over the smelters. It would turn and disappear through the wall on the far side of the gorge. From there it would be lost to him. But there was one other possibility.

  In order to make the sharp turn to the right, the ship would have to hug the left wall of the gorge just prior to the turn. It would pass beneath the rocky promontory with the harpoon turret. If it came close enough, he could make it. He had to. And that was his only hope.

  Atlas frantically scanned his options. The cliff was too steep to climb. He’d never make it to the top in time. He scrambled along the goat-sized trail, careful with his footing so he wouldn’t slip and tumble into the mine. He needed a way up.

  Ahead, he spotted his salvation.

  The elevator. Miners were forming a line and stepping into a cage at the bottom of the canyon. The cage was nearly full. High overhead, a motor was coughing to life. The gate to the elevator swung shut and elevator ropes quivered. Atlas ran.

  The elevator was moving, but in a matter of moments it would pass by the end of the path he was on. It was a hundred feet down if he missed, but if he timed it right . . .

  No time for hesitation.

  He raced down the path and kept his eyes on the point where it ended and the quivering ropes beyond. He lost sight of the elevator briefly as he had to cut into a hairpin turn of the cliff, but as he rounded the bend, it rose into view ahead of him. He tossed his harpoon aside and sprinted, leaping the few feet of distance between the path and the elevator car, watched by the load of startled miners. He collided with the side of the cage, caught one hand on the bars, then lost his footing on the narrow ledge between them, slipping off the edge with one foot and teetering precariously on his other. A hand reached through the bars and grasped his shirt to steady him.

  He looked through the bars to find a dozen dirty faces looking back. The man grabbing his shirt had a massive beard coated in dust and flecks of rock. He only had one arm, but it held Atlas tightly. His eyes were questioning as Atlas righted himself and got a better grip on the bars. “Thanks,” he murmured.

  The man holding his shirt looked up to the elevator’s destination, a wooden platform high overhead, loaded with more of the uniformed mine supervisors. “Don’t know who you are, kid, but the Air Corps won’t like you being here,” the man said. “If you have business you got to do, you best get to it in a hurry.”

  Atlas nodded to him. “I will.” He shifted his feet to the space between the next set of bars and began working his way around the cage. The one-armed man released his grip on Atlas’s shirt, but as he moved, more hands reached through the bars to find his shoulders, his back, or his waist. Some of the hands were missing fingers, many were skeletal and gaunt, but they held on—not detaining him, but clasping and releasing as he moved, a wave of security, keeping him steady and safe from the long fall to the mine floor. Atlas reached the other side of the cage just before the elevator approached the landing platform. He nodded to the miners in the cage, then leapt onto the last footpath that ran beneath the cliff top. He caught himself on the rocks and gripped the side of the gorge wall as the elevator continued up through the bottom of the wooden platform above. One of the youngest miners gave him a wave.

  The fire-propelled balloons were scanning the floor of the mine and the various tunnel openings with their mirror-assisted lights. A beam of light passed along the path beneath his but didn’t reveal his
position.

  He watched for an opening in the surveillance from the Air Corps on the landing platform, then ran along the path, searching for a less conspicuous way up.

  The airships in the gorge were nearing the promontory. One of the smaller airships had passed the big one and was making the turn up the canyon first. The uniformed man in the harpoon turret leaned over the edge of his machine to watch.

  Atlas was a mere eight feet below the top of the cliff now, perhaps a dozen feet from the turret, flattened against the rocky wall. He eased himself up slowly, trying to scale the last bit, but footholds in the rocks were unstable and each one he tried was loose. The last thing he needed was to knock a rock free and send it tumbling down the mountainside. Or send himself with it.

  The rocks above him were slick and hard to hold on to. He pressed himself close to the cliff and searched with his fingers for handholds, but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make it up the last few feet without slipping. He was tempted to leap for the top, but if he missed, or there was nothing up top to grab, it would be a long fall down to the bottom of the mine.

  The airship with the sunburst on the nose was nearing the promontory. The man in the harpoon turret yelled something down to the deck of the ship. Atlas cringed. It was only a matter of time till someone spotted him. He had to act fast. The airship was approaching its closest point. If he had a running start, Atlas could almost leap the distance. It was so close.

  He couldn’t miss this chance.

  He crouched and pulled the coil of rope off his shoulder. He didn’t have any kind of hook to use but he knew what he had to do. His fingers worked fast, yanking one of the stones loose from the cliff wall. He pinched a length of the rope beneath the stone and wrapped furiously. It didn’t have to be pretty, but it had to hold.

  He knotted his makeshift grappling hook and stood up, balancing the weight of it in his hand. The ship was pulling beneath the turret. It was now or never.

  Atlas spun the rock around in an overhand arc, faster and faster as he lengthened the rope. He gave it one final spin and heaved, sailing it up and over the turret’s harpoon launcher at a slight angle. The rope hit the barrel of the launcher and kinked hard. Atlas held tension and let the rock end complete its arc around, once, twice, and a final tight spin, overlapping itself at an angle. The rock clanged into the metal launcher.