The Blood Debt (23 page)

Missing mothers,
Shilly thought,
flying wings, and strange girls from the East ... what have you got yourself mixed up in this time, Skender Van Haasteren?

The young woman moaned and tried to brush away the hands at her head. Her eyelids fluttered. ‘What...? How...?’

‘Take a deep breath,’ said Shilly, leaning close. ‘You’re in safe hands. Your name is Chu, right?’

Her eyes flickered open, revealing irises so brown they were almost as black as her pupils. ‘Yes,’ she said, wincing. ‘Who are you? Where am I?’

‘My name is Shilly.’

‘What happened to ...?’ She sat up, eyes widening in alarm as she looked around. ‘My wing! Skender!’

‘They’re both okay,’ Shilly soothed her, hoping she was telling the truth. ‘Skender’s gone after his mother. We’re meeting him later.’

‘But I had everything ...’ Chu looked at Shilly, crestfallen, then at her torn clothes. ‘It was all going ...’ Without warning, she burst into tears.

Shilly did the only thing she could think of: she took the girl into her arms. Chu didn’t resist, and Shilly brushed away the warden — a young man whose name she had forgotten — when he tried to hang on to the dressing still pressed to Chu’s head. She held it in place as Chu wept into her shoulder.

Around them, the wardens assembled an impromptu camp, positioning the two buses and one buggy in a triangle around the two patients. The sun had crept higher into the sky and burned down with growing force. Two of the wardens took the raw material of the hides and reassembled it into a temporary sunshade. Shilly was heartily glad of it when its shadow fell over them. The dry, ovenlike heat was getting to her.

Finally Chu eased off. She sat back and wiped her nose, unable to meet Shilly’s eyes as she assumed responsibility for the wadding at her head.

‘Does it hurt?’ Shilly asked her.

‘Like anything,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve no idea who you are, but you must think I’m a total freak.’

‘I’ve seen much worse.’ Shilly shrugged. ‘And besides, any friend of Skender’s is a friend of mine, freak or otherwise.’

‘You know him?’

‘Used to, years ago.’

A flash of something very much like jealousy passed across the young woman’s face. ‘How?’

‘He helped Sal and me in the Haunted City,’ Shilly reassured her. ‘Sal’s with him now, making sure he’s okay.’

‘The Haunted City?’ Chu winced and held the wadding tighter to her scalp. Her jealousy intensified, if anything, and Shilly realised that she had misinterpreted where the emotion was directed, and at who. ‘He really does get around, doesn’t he?’

‘Those were exceptional circumstances.’ Shilly wondered how much Skender had told Chu about the old days. ‘I really don’t know what he’s been up to since then. Life has been — well, complicated.’

Chu was beginning to take in more of her environment, looking around in confusion. ‘Seems like it still is. Are these Sky Wardens?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are
you
a Sky Warden?’

‘No way. You’re from Laure?’

Chu nodded, and winced. A look of dismay crossed her fine features. Shilly thought she might cry again. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get back if Skender has my wing.’

That problem had occurred to Shilly also. It was all very well for Sal and Marmion to talk about going to the distant city, but getting there wasn’t going to be easy.

At least Chu didn’t seem angry about Skender’s actions. Concerned, yes; hurt, even; but Shilly was spared having to justify the actions of someone she hadn’t seen for five years.

‘We’ll take you home,’ she said, ‘if you show us a way across the Divide.’

Chu looked cautiously hopeful. ‘There’s a road. It’s pretty old, though, and supposed to be unsafe.’

‘Our rides have come a long way. They’re pretty tough.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘Oh.’ Shilly didn’t know what lived on the bottom of the Divide, and she was in no particular hurry to find out.

‘We saw other vehicles out here,’ she said. ‘Three of them. They’ve gone now. Do you know anything about them?’

Chu shook her head. ‘Skender and I saw them from the air. He thought they were coming from the Aad, but I don’t see how that could be possible.’

‘The where?’

‘The other half of the city, where the Divide cut it in two. The Aad’s a Ruin, and a dangerous one. No one goes there.’

‘And if the road to Laure isn’t used very often, that means they probably didn’t come from there either.’

‘I guess so.’

Shilly took a moment to collect her thoughts. Things weren’t quite adding up right.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, waving for the young warden to resume his ministrations, ‘I have to talk to someone.’

Chu nodded wearily as Shilly went to find Kail.

* * * *

The tracker had wandered off to peer over the edge of the Divide. During daylight hours he wore a wide-brimmed hat that kept his face in permanent shadow. A spreading patch of sweat darkened the back of his cotton shirt.

He looked up as Shilly approached.

‘No sign of them,’ he said, pointing down into the baked rip in the land. ‘Look for yourself.’

Shilly followed the direction of his finger. On the wide, cracked plain below, she saw nothing that looked like a road leading to Laure, and not the slightest trace of Sal and Skender.

She could read the latter evidence, or lack of it, two ways: that they were lying low as they tracked the Homunculus, or that the storm Sal whipped up had propelled them well out of sight. Either option left room for hope. She had no reason or inclination to consider other possibilities.

‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Not about this. I think you’re wrong about the Homunculus.’

Kail placed one leather-booted foot on a boulder and put both hands on the raised knee. ‘In what sense?’

‘Let me ask
you
a question, first.’ She dug the tip of her cane firmly into the dirt. ‘Were you really going to stand by and let Marmion kill the thing you’ve travelled a thousand kilometres to catch?’

‘It’s not my place to wonder what he wants with it,’ Kail drawled. ‘I’m just the tracker.’

‘But you intervened when he went to hit me. Why did you do that?’

‘Because if I hadn’t, that would’ve been wrong.’

‘Can you understand why I’m a little confused?’ she asked him. ‘Obviously I’m grateful to you for stopping things from getting out of hand, but I’d be happier if you could extend that charity to other creatures as well.’

He regarded her for a long moment. ‘If that was the sort of stuff Lodo taught you, no wonder they kicked him out of the Haunted City.’

‘Was
that
why you did it,’ she persisted, ‘because he’s Lodo’s nephew? Are you afraid that Marmion might do something he’ll feel bad about later? Well, I’ve got news for you. After this, he and I are never going to be friends, no matter who we have in common. Not if the Divide swallows the world and we’re the last people left alive.’

Kail smiled crookedly. ‘I can assure you, completely, that when I acted it was not for Marmion’s benefit. And if I were you, I’d never suggest to him that it was. I guarantee you it won’t go down well.’

She imagined it wouldn’t. The odds of her mentioning Marmion’s connection to Lodo were growing remoter by the hour. She would be happiest to forget the whole thing entirely.

‘I want an assurance from you,’ she said, ‘that the Homunculus won’t come to any unnecessary harm the next time it’s in Marmion’s custody.’

‘Why should I agree to that?’

‘Because we still don’t know why Highson made it. Until he explains his motives, I’m prepared to give both of them the benefit of the doubt. Don’t forget that he’d be dead now if the Homunculus hadn’t carried him here.’

‘He might wish he
was
dead when he wakes up and Marmion starts questioning him.’

‘Either way, the truth will come out. Wait until then before judging. Okay?’

He nodded wearily. ‘All right. I’ll do that. Any other requests?’

‘Yes. I want you to help me convince Marmion to give up on going to Laure.’

Prior to that moment, Kail had listened to her with a faintly amused air, as though nothing she said could surprise him. Now he straightened, and his long features creased into a frown.

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘Because that’s not where the Homunculus is going. And I think I can convince you.’

‘Go on then.’ His tone spoke more clearly than his words. It said:
This should be interesting.

‘Have you heard of the Aad?’

He shook his head.

‘It’s not on your map. It turns out that there are two half-cities here, not one. The half on the north,’ she said, pointing into the hazy distance, ‘is Laure. The other is the Aad, a Ruin. Chu, the girl in the flyer, says no one goes there.’

‘If no one goes there, doesn’t that invalidate your argument?’

‘Hardly. For starters, the Aad lies in the Homunculus’s path too, making it just as likely a destination as Laure. And I’d hardly call the Homunculus
anyone,
would you? There may be something in the Aad that you or I wouldn’t recognise as important. The Homunculus may be looking for somewhere to hide.’

‘So it’s shy. Do you really think that?’

She shook her head. ‘I think that our new friends, the ones who buzzed us before, are from the Aad, and that they were coming to meet the Homunculus. Unfortunately for them, we got in the way. Now it’s on the run, and they’ve gone back to where they came from. I don’t have any doubt that they’ll try again.’

Kail nodded slowly. ‘Interesting,’ he said, ‘but you’re forgetting one thing. Just because these people have come from the Aad doesn’t mean that that’s where they’ll end up. It could just be a staging area. Their real destination could be somewhere further afield. Like Laure.’

That was true. ‘Even so,’ she said, ‘if the staging area is there, at the Aad, and we’re quick, we might catch them.’

‘We’ve got wounded to think of. We’ll need to get them to Laure.’

‘But not all of us would have to go. In fact, the fewer of us there are, the more likely we are to go undetected. Say we took the buggy. Me, Tom, you, if you wanted —’

Kail laughed at her, full-throated and long. There was no maliciousness to it, just broad amusement. A flush crept up her throat nonetheless; her mouth shut into a determined line.

He clapped one large hand on her shoulder, sending a shockwave down her weak thighbone.

‘Shilly, you’re amazing. You’ve seen what this thing is and what it can do; you don’t know how many of its friends could be waiting for you in the Aad; yet still you want to charge on in with barely an ally beside you. Don’t you think you’re being a bit rash?’

‘I think this is an opportunity we’d be rash to dismiss,’ she said, shoving his hand aside. ‘With Sal coming one way and us coming the other —’

‘We might find ourselves holding nothing but air.’

‘So we do nothing?’ Frustration flared into anger. She felt that he was dismissing her suggestion without properly considering it. ‘We expect Sal and Skender to do it all on their own while we twiddle our thumbs in Laure?’

‘That’s not what I’m suggesting in the slightest. Yes, we go to Laure, but don’t think I intend to leave it at that. Remember: get there and we’ll have the resources of a small city behind us. Doesn’t that sound a little more appealing, my friend?’

She stared at him, trying to tell if he was fobbing her off with empty words. His deeply etched features seemed sincere enough.

‘I am duty bound to do the Alcaide’s will, as channelled through his loyal representative.’ Kail’s nostrils flared. ‘But I can promise you this: I’ll also do my level best to ensure that Sal and Skender — and the Homunculus, if it matters to you so much — aren’t left in the lurch out here. Do you believe me?’

She did, although she didn’t want to admit it. It unnerved her that he could so easily turn her around when she had been so sure of herself. There was something about him that made her believe him.

Maybe,
she told herself,
it’s just because what he

says makes sense. If only Marmion had half his brains ...

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll take your word on this. But if you let me down, you’ll regret it.’

Without a trace of irony, he said, ‘I’m sure I would.’ His gaze left her and took in the distant smudge that was their destination.

Shilly reconciled herself to the change of plans and did her best to swallow the worry she felt for Sal. She was still angry at him for leaving so precipitously. Why couldn’t they have gone to rescue Skender’s mother together? What was the big rush? The temptation to turn her frustration back on herself or those around her was very strong.

We’ll be back for you soon,
she called to him, although she knew her mental voice went no further than the inside of her skull.
Be safe until then, my love.

* * * *

The Divide

‘Of all the new creatures contending with

Humanity for dominion of the Earth, the

man’kin are the worst. Fashioned after us, yet

owning none of our civilisation, they deserve only

the hammer and the chisel. Talk to one at your

peril, for lies spill from their lips instead of

breath.’

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
FRAGMENT 177

ust don’t fall.

Simple words; an even simpler instruction; but surprisingly hard to obey when strapped to a wing that seemed to have a mind of its own. Sal opened his eyes a crack and instantly squeezed them shut again. The ground was spinning around him. He didn’t think it was supposed to be doing that — and he was
certain
he didn’t want to be so close to it while it happened.

‘Can I help?’ He yelled the words over the sound of the wind flapping and snapping past the wing.