Storm Thief (8 page)

Rail, seeing that she was in a speculative mood, gave up and joined her. “The Faded made it. Everyone knows that. And then they left us or died out or something, and then there was the Fade, and we've spent the rest of the time trying to remember the things we forgot.”

But this answer clearly didn't satisfy Moa. “But why, though? Where did they come from? I mean . . . how did they
get
here, if there's nothing else but Orokos?”

Rail shrugged. “Fact is, it doesn't matter. People like you and me, we just have to worry about surviving.”

She was disappointed by this, and it showed on her face. “You really think that Orokos is all there is? That there's nothing out there? What about the legends? How is it that you don't believe in a past when everything was peaceful and in harmony? You only have to look at what the Faded left behind to imagine how beautiful it must have been.”

“They left us the Chaos Engine as well,” Rail replied. “Now if they
did
live in this perfect world that the legends say, why the freck did they build that thing? Why make something that creates probability storms? And why did they disappear and leave us to deal with it?”

“You know I don't have an answer to that. Nobody does. We don't know enough. It's just about what you believe.”

“You and Kittiwake, you're two of a kind. Dreamers. What evidence have you ever had that there's anything out there?”

“I told you about the lights in the sky, Rail. They—”

“Exactly. That's all they were. Lights in the sky. Could have been anything. And listen, even if – and I say
if
– there was anything out there, how would you ever find out? Nothing is allowed to leave Orokos. Nothing. The city itself won't allow it. You know that better than most.”

She did know that. It was how she had lost her father. He had tried to escape Orokos, to sail out into the ocean in search of that promised land. He hadn't got far.

“But that's the point!” she snapped, a little angry at Rail for bringing up her father. He never could understand why she still believed in the cause that he had died for. Maybe it was only that she didn't want his death to be in vain, that she wanted to prove him right. Or maybe it was just because she needed
something
to believe. “Why won't it let anyone leave? Why does it keep us imprisoned here?”

“So we don't all sail off in search of another land when there
isn't
one?” Rail suggested, exasperated. It was an old, old argument. “I don't know, Moa. Maybe it's for our own good. Maybe there's no reason at all. It's just the way it is.”

Moa gave up. It was clear that Rail wouldn't be persuaded. He dared to try and change his own life, but refused to accept the possibility of a different life away from Orokos. Moa thought that trying to struggle against the world they were born into was foolish, but she clung to the idea that there was some other place out there. A place where there was no oppression, no Protectorate, no probability storms, no Revenants. A place where they would not be forced to live in ghettoes.

She looked down into the water again. “Sometimes I just want to throw myself in,” she murmured. “To let it carry me out of the vents, into the sea, and over the horizon. Maybe I'd wash up on another shore.”

“You'd wash up dead,” Rail said impatiently. “Come on.”

They followed the Artery for some distance before the walkway ended and they were forced to go underground again, through a subway tunnel that ran beneath the canal. It was deserted and in a bad state of repair, filled with the echoing roar of the water overhead. Nobody used this way, which was why Rail had taken it. They clambered over bits of rubble, avoiding the steady drips from cracks in the concrete.

Moa almost stepped on Vago before she saw him. He was curled up in the shadow of a small heap of broken stone. Moa let out a little shriek and jumped back. Rail was at her side in an instant.

The golem cowered at the noise, flinching back against the wall of the tunnel. In the fitful glow of the malfunctioning tracklight overhead, he was partially hidden. But what they could see was bad enough. Rail muttered a curse under his breath at the sight.

“Scared the freck out of me,” Moa said, her heart fluttering, then let out a little laugh.

Rail tugged her arm. “Leave him. Let's go.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. She looked closer at Vago, who cringed like a cur under her gaze. “What happened to you?” she asked him.

“It's not our problem, Moa,” Rail said. He knew how dangerous it was to get involved in other people's troubles. The city was a nasty place, and no good could come of it.

“Just
wait
,” she said, firmer this time. Rail's heart sank. Moa was digging her heels in. She was in one of her stubborn moods. Usually she went along with anything he said, but her tempers were so changeable. He knew that trying to persuade her would just make her angry.

She crouched down in front of Vago. “You're a mess, aren't you?” she said. “Probability storm did this to you, right? Can you speak?”

There were a few moments of silence. Then: “Not a storm. Someone built me.”

“
Built
you?”

“I don't know what for,” he added, as if she had asked him.

Moa thought about that for a moment. “What's your name?”

“My master called me Vago,” he replied slowly.

“OK, Vago. I'm Moa and this is Rail.”

“We're
supposed
to be keeping a low profile!” Rail cried. “You just gave him our names! You
want
to get caught?”

“He's in trouble!” Moa snapped. “Can't you see that?”

“The whole damn world is in trouble, Moa!
We're
in trouble! We don't have time for this!”

“Well, make time,” she replied.

Rail scowled and kicked a stone in annoyance. Moa's soft side was going to get them killed one of these days. In the real world strangers didn't thank you for helping them. In fact, more often they were liable to mug you and rob you. By the time they got to the stage when they needed help they were usually too far gone to want it. But Moa didn't think that way. She believed in some sunny, shiny dream where good deeds actually
meant
something.

“Where's your master now?” Moa was asking Vago, using a soothing tone, as if she was gentling an animal.

“I can't go back to him,” Vago replied.

“He threw you out?”

Vago didn't answer her, merely looked away. Moa took that as a yes, though it really wasn't.

“What's that you've got around your neck?” she asked. It was hard to see in the shadow. Vago reflexively clutched his pendant.

“I don't want to take it from you, Vago,” Moa said. “I was just asking what it was.”

Vago eyed her suspiciously for an instant, then unfolded himself up and into the light. It had been hard to tell his size when he was curled up, but now he towered over them. Moa took a step back, suddenly wishing she had listened to Rail. The sight of the golem in the light was horrifying.

But Vago was showing her the pendant, still attached to his scrawny neck, and she couldn't help but look. A black and white bird, smelling faintly of preservatives. Her first reaction was repulsion, and she drew away from it. It was
dead
. He had a dead thing around his neck. Rail was right, she should never have got involved.

Then: “Rail,” she murmured. “Look at this.”

“What?” he said, coming closer. He made a noise of disgust as he saw it. “Great. Really great,” he commented.

Vago looked eagerly at Moa, who had shown more enthusiasm for his prize.

“No,
look
at it,” Moa urged. “Can I touch it?” she asked Vago, who leaned down so she could reach it more easily.

Rail came closer. Moa turned it over in her hand, studying it in wonder.

“I see a bird,” he said flatly. He wasn't comfortable being this close to Vago. “It doesn't look in the best of health. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“My father studied birds,” Moa said. “He had books and books of them. I used to look through the pictures all the time when I was young. He made me learn them all.” She shook her head. “I've never seen this kind before. Never.”

“So it's a rare bird.”

“It's not rare,” said Moa. “It
doesn't exist
.”

Rail raised an eyebrow. “Not any more, it doesn't.”

Moa let the bird go and Vago retreated a little, watching the two of them.

“No, I mean there is no bird even remotely like that on Orokos. Look at the plumage, look at the bone structure, look at—”

“Where are you going with this?” Rail asked in exasperation.

“It came from
somewhere else!
” Moa said.

Rail pinched his nose between his eyes and sighed. Moa turned to the golem, who wore an expression of puzzlement on the half of his face that was mobile.

“Where did you get it?”

“It flew through my window,” Vago said.

Moa was excited. “We have to take it to Kittiwake!” she cried. “It's another one! It's another bird, like the first, like the one that she caught.”

Vago pulled away, shielding his pendant protectively. Moa held up a hand in apology. “I meant, we have to take
you
to Kittiwake. If you want to go.”

“Moa. . .” Rail said warningly. “It's not like he doesn't attract attention.”

“This is important!” Moa insisted. She turned back to Vago. “Well?”

He returned her gaze with his mottled yellow eye. Ever since he had dragged himself out of the Artery, he had been contemplating a miserable existence alone in this subway tunnel. He had been wishing that the fall had killed him, but he was built tougher than that, it seemed. His bones didn't break like a normal person's. He wasn't sure if his bones were made out of bone at all.

“I will go with you,” the golem said. There seemed no better alternative.

“Moa, he's
baggage
!” Rail said.

“Well, now he's
our
baggage,” she replied firmly.

Rail threw his hands up in frustration and stalked away. He knew she would not be dissuaded now. What burned him up about Moa was that she was usually so passive, but she clung so tightly to her dreams that she sometimes lost her grip on reality. It was a
bird
, for freck's sake. Who cared about a bird?

But it was what she wanted, and in the end he could never say no to her. He heard Moa coaxing Vago to follow them. Sometimes he wished he hadn't ever got mixed up with this girl. But he never wished it for long.

“There he is,” said Rail.

Moa scanned the city below them. A labyrinth of under- and overpasses coiled around each other, shot through by slender bridges. The streets were blotched with illumination, and darkness lay in between. The moon was hidden by cloud and only the arclights and lanterns held back the night in patches. The pallid gleam of the West Artery could be seen in the distance, peeking between the spikes and towers.

A cool wind plucked at them where they hid, on a stone walkway that ran between two browned chimneys of metal. They were crouched behind the parapet of the walkway, the low wall that ran along the edge to stop people falling off.

“I don't see anyone,” she said. It wasn't strictly true. She could see the odd person passing along the lighted streets, an occasional cart or a gyik-tyuk rider slipping through the islands of brightness. But not Finch, nor any of the other thieves that had chased them from their den, whom Rail believed were hunting them. Rail had been making cryptic hints about a plan that he had to get rid of the thieves, but first he had to make sure that they were really being followed. To that end, they had doubled back on themselves in the hope of catching a glimpse of their pursuers.

“Down there. In that little square.”

Vago hunkered closer, his tendons whirring softly as his fingers closed over the edge of the parapet. They had bought a voluminous hooded cloak for him in a vain attempt to disguise his freakishness. It made him look like something that mothers would terrify their children with. They travelled at night now, and they took deserted ways. As long as nobody came too close, they would not know him for what he was.

“I see them,” he said. He pointed one long finger.

“Get down!” Rail hissed, and Vago withdrew quickly like a scolded infant. Then, because Vago was cringing again and Moa would snap at him about it afterward, he added more gently: “We don't want them to see us. OK?”

Vago nodded, his good eye darting uncertainly from Rail to Moa. Moa gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder with one gloved hand, then looked over the parapet again.

This time she spotted them, far away. They were passing through a tiny plaza that nestled between a thick clot of buildings with slanting metal walls. She could make out little detail in the harsh white glare of the arclights, but she could see enough to recognize the black-clad, cowled shape of Finch, and the five thief-boys who lurked with him. Then Finch moved away, into the shadow at the edge of the plaza, and his companions followed him.

Moa looked at Rail, who was regarding her expectantly. “You were right,” she said.

“They've got our trail,” Rail murmured.

Moa slumped against the parapet and wrapped her arms around her knees. Vago hunkered down next to her, his hood shadowing his face.

“So what's the plan?” she asked.

“We're about a mile from Territory West 190. It's also the most direct route to where we're going. I say we take it.”

“West 190?” Moa queried. She thought a moment, then realized where she had heard the name before. “That's one of the districts taken by the Revenants during the last surge.”

“Exactly,” said Rail. “They'd never follow us through there.”

Moa shook her head wearily, her lank black hair swaying with the movement. “It's too dangerous,” she said. But her protest was already half-hearted. Rail always determined these kind of things. He was the one who made the big decisions, he was the one with the answers. She drifted along in his wake, happy to be guided by him. The responsibility of choice was something that she didn't want.

“You said yourself that we can't lead anyone to Kilatas,” Rail told her. “And any chance we might have had of giving them the slip ended once you decided to adopt your little friend there. Eventually, they'll catch us up. We have to take the chance.”

Moa seethed inwardly. He had been needling her about Vago ever since the golem had joined them. He had made it quite clear what he thought of having Vago with them. Typical of him: one of the few times she made a decision and stuck to it, he made her feel foolish.

“I don't like it,” she said. “It's such a risk.”

Rail peered over the parapet again, searching for another glimpse of their pursuers. “Sometimes you have to take a risk, Moa,” he threw back at her.