Storm Thief (6 page)

In the small hours of the night, Vago would talk to the painting that leaned against the wall in his room. It was quieter then: Cretch wasn't in his laboratory, and so the pipes and valves that fed it no longer boomed and clicked. The moonlight would paint everything in peaceful shadow. Vago would stand by the window, his scrawny, elongated body of metal and muscle and wing half-hidden by the dark, and spill his thoughts to the picture. The picture never spoke back. But it did pay attention.

It was a small painting in a brass frame. When he had found it, it was covered over with a drape, dusty with neglect. There were no other paintings in the tower. Vago wondered how this one had come to be here, and why his master had left such an interesting picture in this chamber which he rarely visited.

The scene was of one of Orokos's canalside areas. In the foreground ran the water, swiftly flowing from left to right. It was heading for one of the enormous vents that would spew it from the edge of the rocky island to the sea far below. Walkways and bridges cluttered the far side of the canal, and there were doorways and dreary shopfronts set on many levels. In the background rose tall spires and a huge, dark temple. Vago thought he recognized the scene, but he couldn't think why.

The girl was standing on the canalside on the right of the picture, leaning on the railing and looking down into the water. Her white hair spilled down one side of her face. Her dress looked expensive: the sign of a wealthy upbringing. She wasn't a ghetto girl, that much was for sure.

Last time Vago had checked, she had been staring out of the window of a shop, her expression bored. The time before, she had been waving at him from one of the bridges, smiling happily. A few times he couldn't find her at all, and he panicked. He thought of her as a companion, and she was the only one he had. But she would always be back sooner or later. And she listened to him, even if she never answered. He could tell.

“Do
you
know where my maker is?” he would ask her.

Vago's memories of the time after he was made were very fuzzy and muddled. He had fleeting impressions of a cell of some kind, a room of black iron with bars on the door. Men in black coats studied him, and he was scared of them. But there were only two things he could recollect with any clarity. One was a face, looking in at him through the curved window of some kind of tank. It was a thin, severe face, more familiar to Vago than his own. The other thing was a name: Tukor Kep. There was nobody else it could be but his maker. The one who gave him life.

Where had he gone? Or, more accurately, where had
Vago
gone?

He didn't know how long it had been since he had found himself in this room. His memory had still not settled by then, and he was like a newborn, unable to understand what was around him. Cretch discovered him here on the morning after a particularly violent probability storm. It wasn't hard to guess what had occurred. The Storm Thief had plucked him from the place he was made and put him elsewhere. Vago imagined his maker's distress at discovering the golem was gone, and it made him sad. But he didn't know how to get back.

He ran his long fingers over the dead bird that hung around his neck. Cretch, in a moment of unusual kindness, had treated it with preserving fluid to stop it rotting and given it back to Vago. Its wings were folded now, close to its body so that they didn't get in his way too much. Ephemera had given up laughing at it; she just sneered instead. But Vago liked the seabird, and he thought the girl in the picture did too. The first time he showed it to her, she was open-mouthed in wonder.

 

When Cretch was working he sent Ephemera up to summon Vago, and the golem dutifully attended. He was a useful assistant around the laboratory. When he straightened up he was very tall, and could reach the highest shelves. His fingers were extraordinarily nimble and strong, good for delicate work. He could crush a stone between his thumb and forefinger, but he could also thread a needle first time, every time.

The laboratory was dark and hot, but islands of bright light were thrown by hooded lamps that hung like vultures over Cretch's workspace. There was a kiln for baking ceramics, a rotating saw and a whining lathe, a blowtorch and a little dynamo that produced tiny forks of lightning. And everywhere there were devices: mannequins, porcelain figurines, miniature animals and delicate temples. There were clockwork faces that copied the expression of whoever gurned at them. There were wheeled cats that chased wheeled mice around the room, homing in on their darting targets, drawn by some mystical force that Vago didn't understand. There were jagbat automatons that folded and unfolded their wings restlessly. Vago made sure to keep his own wings carefully tucked away.

Whenever Vago returned there was something new to marvel at. Even half-built, they were masterpieces. Cretch was a toymaker, and his toys were the wonder of Orokos.

“But whoever made you,
they
could teach me a thing or two,” he had said to Vago more than once. “I'd love to take you apart and see what makes you tick.”

Vago didn't like the sound of that, and he kept quiet about Tukor Kep. He had asked Cretch once if he knew who his maker was, but Cretch said only that he “had his suspicions” and didn't explain further. Vago didn't dare to press him.

Cretch was in a foul mood this morning, having not slept well the night before. Vago glanced nervously at the walking stick that lay against Cretch's work desk. His master was bent over some tiny jewelled thing, squinting through his goggles while he tapped at it delicately with a pin. Vago lurked in the shadows and tried to be silent. He had learned to fear Cretch when he was like this. He was liable to catch a beating if he put a foot wrong today. He stroked his bird-pendant and watched his master warily.

“Oh, my eyes. . .” Cretch groaned, pinching his brow. He had been complaining about his failing vision for some time now, and it was beginning to hamper his work. “Vago, come here.”

The golem came closer, looming over the old man.

“Hold this,” he said, motioning at the jewelled thing. It turned out to be a beetle, formed of glittering strands as delicate as spun sugar. “Carefully!”

Vago did as he was told, pinching it with one hand to hold it still. It was tougher than it looked, but even so, it was terrifying to have to squeeze it, no matter how gently. He was afraid he would break it. He might have known Cretch would give him some task like this. It was as if the old man wanted an excuse to beat him.

“Good, good,” Cretch said. He peered closer and began to scratch at the beetle again with his needle. “Now turn it a little. The other way, I mean. Good.”

Cretch worked nimbly around the beetle with the point of his pin, clearing away minute specks of grit and flaked metal that hid at the edges of the gemstones. Vago began to relax a little. Cretch just wanted him to hold it because it was too delicate for any of his instruments. As long as he didn't squeeze any harder than this, then everything would be fine.

“What do you suppose you were made for, Vago?” Cretch asked absently while he worked.

Vago didn't have an answer. Cretch took his silence as meaning that he didn't understand.

“It's not easy, you know. Creating life.
I
can't do it. I can create the best
copies
of life in the city, but none of them are like you.”

“Am I alive?” Vago asked, in his strained whine-growl voice.

“Of course you are.”

“But I was made. Ephemera says I can't be alive.”

He blew his lips derisively. “What does she know? It doesn't matter that you were made. We're all
made
. Made in women's bellies. Just because you're made of different stuff doesn't make you any less alive.”

Vago considered this.

“But what were you made
for
?” Cretch mused. “That's what I'm wondering. For someone to make something like you. They must have had a reason.”

“Maybe I'm a toy,” Vago suggested.

Cretch barked a laugh. “No. I know toys. You wouldn't be much fun. Perhaps –”

He got no further, for at that moment his pin slipped, and jabbed deeply into the dry flesh of Vago's finger. Reflexively, the golem's hand clenched, and the jewelled beetle was crushed to a ball of fibres in an instant.

Cretch howled in anguish as Vago retreated to the back of the room, dread flooding him. He knew, with a child's terror, that he had done something wrong. It didn't matter that it didn't seem to be his fault, that it was Cretch who had stabbed him with the needle. Vago would be punished anyway, the way children always got punished for adults” mistakes.

And then Cretch was rising from his stool, picking up the knobbed walking-stick, turning wrathfully on the golem that cringed in the shadows.

“Do you know what you've done?” he said, his voice low. Then, quick as a snake, he brought up the walking stick and brought it crashing down on Vago's wing. “Do you know what you've
done
?”

Vago flinched under the impact. Pain, awful pain. Something ugly blazed in his mind, a sudden, violent anger. But he was ashamed of that feeling, afraid of it. Each time he was beaten the anger seemed to be stronger, threatening to overwhelm him. He tried to suppress it, but it would not be kept down. It was something within, something primal. Something that he couldn't control.

“That took me
days
!” Cretch cried. “Days!” He brought the stick down hard across Vago's back, chipping it on the metal fins that ran down the golem's spine.

Vago crumpled under the blow and tried to scramble away, but his attempt at escape was half-hearted. He knew that running away would only make things worse. The stick cracked across his metal skull and his vision went white and sparkled. Something was clawing up from within him, terrible feelings of hatred and fury clouding his mind. Cretch was ranting in the background, venting his frustration, and the stick was raised and swung again.

But Vago wasn't there. All he knew was that someone was hurting him, and he reacted. He darted out of the way like liquid, grabbing the stick in one hand as he did so. With a twist of his wrist he broke it in half, and before the pieces had fallen the golem had Cretch's throat in one hand, lifting his master off the floor, his wings outspread. Cretch gasped like a fish, eyes bulging behind black goggles, legs kicking feebly. The golem glared at his master with his one good eye, metal fangs bared, a soft clicking noise coming from his chest.

Slowly, those terribly strong fingers began to tighten.

It was Ephemera's scream that stopped him. She had been attracted by the ruckus, excited by the prospect of seeing her grandfather dish out another beating to the poor freak that she was used to ridiculing. Now she found her grandfather dangling like an eel on a hook, and the golem was suddenly not so comical any more.

That shrill noise shook Vago back to his senses. The thing hanging in his grip was Cretch again, his master Cretch. The man who had taken him in and cared for him, even though sometimes he did beat him like a dog. Vago opened his hand, and Cretch fell to the floor in a heap, choking. Ephemera watched from the doorway of the laboratory, stunned.

“I hate you!” she shrieked, bursting out of her stupor. “I hate you!”

But Vago wasn't listening. There was only one thing to do now. He dared not stay, dared not face Cretch's retribution for what he had done. He pushed Ephemera clumsily aside and fled down the stairs of the tower, out into the city.

Vago had never been outside, as far as he could recall. It didn't take him long to realize why.

He emerged from the gate at the base of Cretch's tower and into the daylight. The gate was a massive mechanical thing set amid the thick bedrock that covered the lower third of the tower. It let out on to a street set into the side of a steep hill. The hill was utterly covered in buildings, a clutter of rooftops and alleyways and stairs.

He stumbled out on to the road. It was a grey morning, the sky thick with sea-mist. Carts and steam engines rolled along noisily. Between them darted riders on high-stepping gyik-tyuks, agile things that looked like a cross between lizard and bird. The gyik-tyuks squawked and hissed at each other, displaying the grey feathers at their neck to warn off any other gyik-tyuks that came near. Men and women shopped at stores all along the street, buying strange foodstuffs from the hydroponics farms up in the Agricultural Zone. They wore robes in drab colours, and they had curious ornaments around their necks and hanging from their ears.

Vago gazed at the scene in wonder. The clammy air tasted faintly salty and the breeze tingled on his wrinkled and puckered skin. For a long moment, he was paralysed by the sheer busyness of the street, overwhelmed by sight and sound, by the outrageous variety all around him.

Then the first of the screams came. A child's shriek, reminding him of Ephemera. He turned towards its source, and there was a little girl staring at him. Her mother had gathered her close and was gaping at Vago. Heads turned at the sound and eyes fixed on him. There were more screams, and murmurs and exclamations from the menfolk.

He stood before the gate of the tower, feeling suddenly hunted. He wanted to duck back inside. But he couldn't return to that place, not after what he had done.

People all around had come to a standstill, gawking at the golem. He was a mockery of human form, a repulsive hybrid of dry flesh and dull metal. A horror. Probability storms threw up all kinds of weirdness, and occasionally a person might be seen with three arms, or two heads, or a coat of scales or a forked tail. It could happen to anyone, at any time. That was why people feared the storms: because they reminded them how fragile their happiness was, how easily their world could be turned inside out. That was why people reacted with disgust and hate.

Vago saw the first stone coming, instinctively tracking the movement. A targeter in his mechanical eye calculated the trajectory faster than thought. He knew exactly where it was going to hit him. But he was still too surprised to get out of the way.

There was a sharp pain as it struck his shoulder. He whirled and stanced in a crouch, his natural eye fixed on the man who had thrown it, his metal fangs bared, his wings half-open. Like a predator, ready to spring. The man went white, and the crowd hesitated, some with stones ready in their hands. There was something in the golem's reaction, something that told them this wasn't some unfortunate thing that could be tormented and driven away, that he was dangerous.

But there were dozens of them and only one of him. The stones started flying.

Vago was pounded under a hail of rocks. They thumped into his flesh and clanked off the mechanical parts of him. He howled and tried to dodge, but the assault was relentless. The crowd were shouting obscenities at him, catcalls and hollers. He didn't understand, didn't know what he had done to merit this kind of abuse. He had harmed no one, done nothing but share the same street as them.

Oh yes!
he heard Ephemera crowing in his mind.
Ugly is what you are!

Fury blazed up inside him. He glared hatefully at the men and women and children who were stoning him, and he wanted to murder every last one of them, to pounce upon them and break their bones with his strong hands and bite their necks with his sharp jaws until they –

He caught himself, shocked at the primal viciousness of that thought. He had to get away, away from here, from all of this. And so he ran, springing away suddenly, darting through a gap in the crowd. He moved with a fluid grace entirely at odds with his appearance. The mob was too surprised to stop him, nor would any of them have dared. They had seen the killer in his eyes, and they were not willing to tackle him except in a pack.

He fled on all fours. He had never had to run before, but he naturally fell into a bounding lope that propelled him at great speed down the street. Screams and exclamations followed him as he lunged through the crowds, slipping between the slow, wheezing vehicles, cringing from the sight of the people that surrounded him. Everywhere he looked he saw faces twisted in distaste or fear, people pointing or scrambling out of his way. He wanted to hide from their eyes, but they were everywhere.

Into the alleys. That was the answer. Into the alleys, get off the street.

A clamour had arisen somewhere nearby now. A shrill, pulsing whistle, joined by another and yet another. He had heard that sound from high up in his tower before. It was the alarm call of the Protectorate soldiers.

He leaped over a cowering boy and plummeted down a set of steps, his wings tucked in close. He landed lightly on his fingertips and toes when he struck the walkway below. Stone buildings, shops of some kind, reared up on either side of him. Between them was a narrow throughway. He took it.

The buildings closed him in, screening him from the crowd on the street. He felt a desperate relief at being away from them. His skin crawled with reflected loathing. The throughway was empty. As he reached the end of it he slowed and looked back, like a kicked dog that wasn't sure whether to return to its master.

“It's here!” someone cried in the distance. Vago tensed. If he ran, where would he run to? He was afraid of the city, and it was all around him.

Two figures appeared at the end of the alley. They were armoured in pale green, their eyes hidden behind wraparound visors that glowed faintly with the same colour. Both were shaved bald, and they carried with them some kind of devices affixed to their right forearm. Sleek metal shapes, with stubby muzzles that projected past their wrists.

“There it is!”

A sudden memory. Vago recognized these people. Protectorate soldiers. And the things on their arms, that they were now pointing at him. . .

Aether cannons.

He moved an instant before they fired. The cannons spat squealing globs of burning green energy, a moist slither of pure aether that fizzed and spat as it cut through the air. They struck the wall where Vago had stood a split-second before, spraying across it before disappearing with an angry hiss, leaving the stone unmarked. Aether cannons didn't damage inorganic matter like stone. Nor did they affect organic material like flesh. Nobody knew how they worked, but everyone knew what they did. One hit from an aether cannon would blow your soul apart.

Vago was around the corner and into another alleyway before the soldiers had even realized they had missed. He heard the whistle of their alarms as they gave chase. They were answered by others. The soldiers were closing in fast.

This alleyway was cobbled, and a thin stream of dirty water ran down a gutter at its side. It was dense with rickety shopfronts selling strings of animal hooves and spices, cheap ornaments and medicinal concoctions. There was a heavy scent of cooking patties, aromatic smoke and sweat. Shaggy buta chewed handfuls of weeds: dim beasts of burden with dirty white pelts that hung over their eyes. Their curling horns were brightly painted and tinkled with little gold charms. They watched Vago pass without interest.

He bounded between the sellers and the buyers, scaring them as he passed. People cursed and fell out of the way, only realizing afterward that it wasn't an animal but something else that had blurred by. He could hear the whistles of the soldiers, knew that they were ahead of him as well as behind. But he had to run. There was nothing else he could do.

Then the buildings on either side peeled back and let the sky in, and there before him was a long, curving bridge that arched over a massive canal. The canal was the West Artery, one of the main waterways of the city. It ran from the great pump atop a mountain near the centre of Orokos. There, seawater was sucked up and purified before being released from a colossal reservoir to flow back towards the ocean, travelling north, south and west along the Arteries. It had flowed east, too, until some time ago when the canal had disappeared during a probability storm. Most of eastern Orokos was flooded. Since then, those areas had become slums, and were plagued with Revenants.

Vago sprang out of the alleyway and on to the bridge. It went from one side of the Artery to the other with no visible means of support. He was terrified by the amount of space around him, by the misty sky and the sensation of great height. He could see the rushing water far below. There was nothing to stop him falling off except a low parapet.

Down the canal, he could see all the way to the edge of Orokos, many miles away. In the other direction, towards the centre, he could see the spires and rooftops of the city. There were cranes and derricks, and the rotted tooth of an occasional mountain shrouded in a white haze. Among them were the magnificent and obscure shapes of constructions left over from the Functional Age.

People were screaming again, and whistles pulsed. The men and women on the bridge scattered. Running towards Vago were three more Protectorate soldiers. He stumbled to a halt and looked back desperately, but he could see the two more soldiers pushing through the alleyway he had just come from. There was no escape there. He was trapped.

The soldiers levelled their aether cannons. The people cried out and cowered against the parapets. Vago took one step and sprang over the side of the bridge.

He had been hoping, perhaps, that instinct would take over, that he would spread his leathery wings and fly. He was mistaken. As soon as his wings unfolded, the wind caught them and the impact sent him spinning, flailing uselessly.

Hopelessly tangled, he plunged like a rock towards the water below. Calculations flickered through his head, judgements of distance and velocity. The massive canal raced up to meet him, unstoppably fast. After falling this far, the surface would be like concrete.

He hit the water at bone-shattering speed, and after that there was darkness.