Storm Thief (24 page)

In the depths of Kilatas, beneath hundreds of feet of dank rock, men and women and children prepared for their departure. Tomorrow they would set out for the promised land. Tomorrow, all they had lived for would come to fruition. Tomorrow, they would run the gauntlet of the Skimmers.

None of them dared to entertain the thought that they would fail. They hurried to make watertight the last of the boats. The shipyards rang with industry. Each extra craft heightened their chances of survival by giving the Skimmers another target to distract themselves with. There was a constant supply of rough food coming in through the secret ways that led down from the city. People were spending the last of their meagre savings on supplies, and those who had remained above to guard Kilatas' doors were returning to the town.

Kittiwake walked with Ortolan towards her shack. To their right were the shipyards, a mass of scaffolding covered with clambering metalworkers and shipwrights. To their left were the cluttered docks where dozens of ships – rusty tubs, junks, tugs, anything with an engine – jostled at their moorings. They had checked and checked again the explosives wired into the western wall, ready to collapse it and let in the sunlight, to provide a route to the open sea. Except for the scramble to make the last vessels seaworthy, everything was in place. And yet Kittiwake couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

Just nerves, she told herself. But she didn't quite believe it.

Ortolan was a self-taught scholar and a natural genius. It was he who had worked out the complex algorithms that predicted in what numbers the Skimmers would come. It was also he who had calculated the probabilities of survival based on the speed and number of the ships, the speed and number of Skimmers, and the distance across the killing zone (which also fluctuated from day to day, and had to be predicted and taken into account).

There was no appreciable difference in seasons in Orokos, no years or months. Anything longer than a few dozen days was referred to in a vague way, as “ages ago” or likened to another event, such as “back when we had the flood”. So Kittiwake really had no idea how long it had been since she started assembling the people who would build Kilatas, how long it had taken Ortolan to make his calculations, how long they had spent making ships. But it was all to come to this.

Ortolan was a small, mole-like man with a fringe of greying hair around a bald pate, slit-eyed goggles and a squat, hunched appearance. He shuffled around in a battered brown coat, muttering to himself. Next to him, Kittiwake walked straight-backed, surveying all, her hair a tight ponytail and her face stern. She should have been ecstatic to see all this, to know that it was all finally going to
happen
; but something was sour, and she couldn't tell what.

She and Ortolan entered her dim shack, still talking over the impending departure, and she closed the door behind them. She stood there a moment, as if listening; then she looked around the room purposefully. Ortolan was rambling about a new idea he had for assigning townsfolk to boats when he noticed her expression.

“What's wrong?”

“There's something different,” she replied. “The room doesn't feel right. Like something's been moved.”

“You've been jumpy for days now,” Ortolan said.

“I know,” she said. She cast around the room again. “There.”

It was the painting. Lelek was back. She had been absent for the last few days, ever since she had directed Rail and Moa to the Null Spire.

The picture in the frame was completely different. Before, it had depicted a street scene; but now that could barely be seen in the background. Almost all of the picture was taken up by Lelek. She was so close it seemed that she was about to climb out of the picture, her face frozen in a scream, her eyes alarmed. One hand was spread as if pressed against a window, like she was trying to push through the painting and into the real world beyond. The other was drawn back in a fist, hammering at some invisible barrier.

Kittiwake felt a chill. She stood before the painting and studied it. The girl was so lifelike, it was hard to believe that she was only ink and water. There was a pleading in her eyes. Her scream was part fear, part desperation. Kittiwake looked closer. No, Lelek wasn't afraid for herself. She was begging, wanting the person on the other side of the painting to listen to her, unable to make herself understood.

“What does it mean?” Ortolan asked.

And suddenly Kittiwake knew. Vago's escape, Rail and Moa going to the Null Spire, and now this. It was a
warning
.

“Oh, freck. They've found out about us,” she breathed. “The Protectorate. They know about Kilatas.” She turned to Ortolan, her voice hardening. “They'll be coming.”

“What? Eh?” Ortolan blustered. “How do you know? How can you tell?”

Kittiwake ignored him, stalking around the room. “We have to go. We have to sail. Right now.”

“We can't sail now! The Skimmers would tear us apart!”

“If we don't leave now, we won't leave at all! If the Protectorate know about us then they already have troops on the way. They'll have Dreadnoughts assembling on the water by tonight. We'll not get two hundred yards out into the ocean, and if we try to abandon this place and flee we'll just run right into the soldiers.”

“But the Skimmers. . .!”

She looked out of the window, arms folded, tapping her foot in agitation. “We can mobilize in a few hours. Most of the supplies are loaded. We can leave the unfinished ships behind. We just need to get everyone on board.” Her gaze was flickering over the people working on the shipyards outside. “If we left today, what would be the casualties?”

“Ninety per cent,” Ortolan replied immediately. “We'd be facing seven Skimmers.”

“Ninety per cent,” said Kittiwake, feeling slightly sick. “Versus one hundred per cent if the Protectorate get here in time.”

“If the Protectorate are coming at all,” Ortolan added. He scratched the top of his head and sounded apologetic. “There's an awful lot of people who'll pay if you're wrong.”

“And I might be one of them,” said Kittiwake. “I know what's at stake here. I'm
not
wrong.”

Ortolan peered at her doubtfully through his goggles. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure I'd rather die than have the Protectorate take away our one chance at freedom,” she said, and in the dull light from the grimy window she looked suddenly like a statue. Then she snapped a glance at Ortolan, and the illusion was broken.

“We sail. Now.”

Rail and Moa fled down a smooth tunnel of pale blue, lined with metallic ridges and dotted with recessed lights that cast a soothing glow. Behind them, they could hear Vago getting closer.

“I'm on your back, scum!” came the wrecked voice from down the corridor. “There's nowhere to hide!”

“There!” Rail hissed. Moa, who was already out of breath, saw what he was pointing at: some kind of grille, like silver webbing, set low on one side of the tunnel. Beyond was a duct or a crawlway or . . . they didn't know what it might be. But it was too small for Vago to follow them. Probably.

Rail skidded to his knees and grabbed the grille to see if he could pull it off. To his surprise, it melted away at his touch, leaving a round hole and darkness beyond. A featureless pipe, apparently, made of the same alien substance as the walls of the tunnel. They couldn't afford to be picky.

Rail ushered Moa in and she went without hesitation. Whatever was at the end of that pipe couldn't be as bad as what was coming after them. But once inside she found it was barely big enough to admit her shoulders. There would be no space at all to turn around. The claustrophobia was overwhelming, the blackness total. They could easily get stuck in here, with no way to go but back. She was afraid of not being able to breathe.

But she had spent most of her adolescence as a thief, and she had got through narrower spaces than this before. She wriggled inward. The unyielding sides of the pipe pressed close to her.

Rail glanced nervously back up the tunnel just as Vago appeared, springing round the corner and racing towards Rail with his steel fangs bared. Rail crammed himself into the pipe after Moa, for he was almost the same size and thin as a rake. He bumped his respirator pack against the top of the pipe with a hollow clang. For an instant he thought that he would be stuck here, legs dangling out for the golem to savage. But he scrambled along, following the dirty soles of Moa's boots, and got inside.

Vago's face appeared in the circle of light at the end of the pipe. He reached in, his long arm stretching enough so that his middle finger scraped along the side of Rail's foot. But he couldn't get a grip, and by the time he tried again Rail was too far away.

“I'll find you!” he howled after them. “I'll find you, you detestable ghetto spawn!”

And then, with a final curse, he was gone, and there was only the sound of their frantic breathing as they shuffled up the pipe.

Once they were far enough along, Rail awkwardly passed Moa the glimmer visor he had taken from the fallen soldier. It offered adequate night-vision, and since she was in the lead she needed it more than he did. She managed to put it on with a bit of jostling. The dim yellow-green scene that greeted her eyes was unremarkable – the pipe was as featureless as they had imagined – but at least she could see, and that eased the oppression of their situation a little.

“What happened to him?” she said, her voice echoing.

“Vago?” Rail replied. “He was a spy. He was like that all along. This is what he really thought of us.”

“No,” she murmured. “No, he's changed.”

“He hasn't changed,” Rail said firmly. “He was just a very good actor. He fooled us all.” He sighed. “Now let's just get out of here. There were hundreds of exits, remember? The whole Fulcrum opened up. We need to find one.”

Moa thought for a moment. “But what about the Skimmers?”

“What
about
them?”

“If we don't shut them off, the people of Kilatas will die.”

“How do we shut them off? You think there'll just be a switch?”

“Why not?” Moa countered.

“Well, do
you
know where it is? 'Cause I sure as freck don't.” Rail pushed her feet and she began wriggling again. “There's hundreds of Protectorate army soldiers back there,” he said. “You think we can do it if they can't? If we get out of here now, we'll have time to get to Kilatas and warn them. Maybe by then Bane will have managed to shut off the Engine or something.”

Moa chewed her lip. What he said made sense, but she couldn't help feeling that he was just trying to make her agree to escape with him. “Didn't you want to change your world, Rail? Don't you want to try?”

“I tried,” he said. “And we ended up here. And if we don't get away, the Protectorate will be the least of our worries. It's probably heaving with Revenants outside right now, and it's going to get worse.”

“Then we go for the Engine. If we shut it off, the Revenants go away!”

“We are
not
heroes!” he cried, his voice becoming fuzzy as his respirator muzzle glitched. He grabbed the ankle of her boot and she stopped. “Listen. There's nothing we can do. We have to look out for ourselves.”

“It's because everyone only looks out for themselves that this world is the way it is,” Moa replied quietly, and after that they went on in silence.

The pipe made several gentle turns and then began slanting upward, passing through junctions with other pipes whose purpose was similarly unknown. Once they heard the distant hum of a massive fan and wondered if the pipes were to conduct air through the Fulcrum, or if they had some other purpose. The systems and mechanisms of the Faded were beyond their understanding.

They lost track of time. They were not sure how long it was before they saw light at the end of the pipe. Their progress had been excruciatingly slow. With weary relief, they crawled onward, until the pipe ended and they were at last able to move again.

It was a huge shaft, lit in soft green and criss-crossed by dozens of slender, silver-coloured tubes. The surface of the tubes was partially transparent, and inside they could see clusters of wiring that were blue and organic and rubbery like veins. Between the pipes, they could see down to the bottom, where still water lay below meshed metal flooring. Many small platforms, linked by metal ladders, led up from the base of the shaft towards the top, forming an uneven and broken spiral. They had come out on to one of these from the pipe.

“Up or down?” Moa asked.

Rail listened. The distant sounds of aether cannon fire could still be heard among the shouts of soldiers. There was a loud clanking noise from below as something was knocked over or thrown violently. There were people close by.

“Up,” he said, against his better instincts. “Too dangerous to go down there at the moment. We'll see if we can find a way across to the other side of this shaft.”

They climbed a short ladder to another platform. There was a panel of curious instruments set in the wall, covered in things that might have been buttons or faders. They could see now that there was a door of some kind on the other side of the shaft, higher up. If they kept climbing and walking along the platforms they would eventually reach it. Rail had just set his hands and feet to the next ladder when Moa sucked in her breath and clasped a hand to his shoulder. He looked back at her, and she motioned downward with her eyes.

At the bottom of the shaft was Vago. He was prowling silently, his head turning left and right, wings half-cocked. Little bolts of aether fizzed between the metal blades that ridged his spine. He had absorbed enough Revenants in that first chamber to keep him going for a long time to come.

Rail froze where he was. Moa did the same. They watched him through the crosshatch of silver tubes, and willed him not to look up.

He crept into the centre of the room, and slowed to a halt. Moa swallowed. There was suspicion in his movements. He could sense that he was being watched.

There's nothing for you here
, she thought at him.
Just go. Just go.

It was as if she had spoken aloud. He tipped his head back and his gaze found her.

“
There
you are,” he growled.

Rail didn't need another prompt. He climbed the ladder as fast as he could, Moa close behind. At the bottom of the shaft, they saw Vago bunch and spring. He jumped a clear twenty feet and landed with uncanny balance on one of the silver tubes, his wings spread. As they ran along the platform to the next ladder, he jumped again, this time catching one of the tubes with his hands and pulling himself on to it. He was ascending the shaft far quicker than they were, and closing in fast.

Rail scampered up the next ladder. Now they had got most of the way around the circular side of the shaft and were nearing the door. On this platform was some kind of control panel, like a lectern, facing out into the centre of the shaft. On impulse, Rail kicked it, and was surprised to find that it gave a little. Though it was secured to the platform, it hadn't been meant to take heavy knocks. Rail kicked it again, hard, and it tilted. Again, and it tilted more.

Moa had reached the top of the ladder now. She saw what he was doing, and put her own boot to the task. Both of them kicked it, and it teetered. Rail shoved it the rest of the way, and it fell from the platform into the shaft. Plummeting towards Vago.

The golem had heard the noise and saw the control panel tip towards him, but he was still barely able to get out of the way. It came crashing through the silver tubes, smashing them as it went and then bouncing off at a new angle as they shattered. The ruptured tubes sprayed an oily blue fluid. Vago calculated probable rebound trajectories and jumped to avoid the panel, but the tube he jumped to had been damaged and broke under his weight. The panel fell past him, ploughing a furrow of destruction down the shaft, and he fell with it for a few weightless moments before his hand clamped around an unbroken tube. He hung there as the panel finally smashed through the mesh floor and into the water at the bottom.

A rain of fluid from the squirting ends of broken tubes splattered down the shaft. He pulled himself up, his leathery brown skin streaked with blue. Then, with a howl, he sprang again, darting up the shaft in swift pounces, his fury at his prey redoubled now.

Rail and Moa hadn't waited to see the results of their vandalism. They had reached the door. But the door wasn't opening.

“Try pressing it!” Moa cried, as they attempted to decipher the featureless black panel which they guessed was the mechanism to let them inside.

“I
have
pressed it,” Rail snapped back. He ran his hands over the surface of the door in an attempt to find a seam, but there was nothing.

Moa was at the edge of the platform, looking down. Vago was still coming, unstoppable. There was nowhere else to run.

“Make it work, Rail!” she pleaded desperately.

“You're the one that's good with locks!” he said. “Give me a hand here!”

“It's Fade-Science!” she protested, but she came to his side anyway. “What do I know about Fade-Science? You think I can just wave my hand at it and it will open?”

She waved her hand before the black panel to demonstrate the ridiculousness of this, and the door gave a gentle chime and opened. Rail looked at her in amazement.

“What are the chances?” she said with a shrug.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the doorway. Beyond was a small room, not big enough to fit more than six or seven people in standing up, with rounded walls. It was like being inside an egg.

“Close it!” Rail urged her. They couldn't see Vago now, but any second he would appear, leaping over the edge of the platform. Moa flailed about, searching for something similar to the black panel that had opened the door, but the inside of the room was entirely smooth.

“I don't know! I don't know what to do!”

“Well, figure it out before Vago gets up here!” Rail told her.

Another chime sounded in the room the moment Rail said “up'. At the same moment, the golem sailed over the edge of the platform and landed on it with a thump, six feet away from them. But he was a fraction too late. The door had already begun to slide closed. Before it had sealed entirely they heard the golem crash against it with a thwarted shriek.

Then silence, and the sensation of movement. They were travelling upward.

Rail looked at the ceiling of the room as if he could see through it to what lay beyond. Moa slipped her cold, pale fingers through his.

The two of them waited to see where the Fulcrum was taking them. It was all they could do.