The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) (14 page)

33
S-E-C-R-E-T

“Ember?”

The mechanikin lay lifeless on the desk, her eye a bubble of cold glass. Kite put his weight on the walking stick, taking the pressure off his ankles and the needling pain in his legs.

“Ember, can you hear me?” he said.

Nothing.

Kite had a horrible feeling Shelvocke may have been right. Maybe Ember had been damaged when the corpusant exploded under the
Windspear
.  Trust his luck to have destroyed the one thing of value he still had.

“Ember, come on, answer me,” Kite said. “It's time to talk. You want to talk don't you?”

“This is pathetic,” Fleer said, crossing her arms. “The doll's nothing more than Weatheren junk.”

Ember’s eye flickered. Blue at first but becoming pinkish. A sharp, irritable voice crackled from the mechanikin's mouth. “I am not junk!”

“It's all right, Ember,” Kite said, relieved and terrified all at once. “She didn't mean it.”

“Where am I?” Ember demanded. “This airmachine is from Fairweather. A Tempest class fulgurtine. 17,000 tons. Service ceiling 6,000 feet.  Flying east by south-east, 37 knots at 4,543 feet.”

Shelvocke sat forward. “How could you know that?!”

“A Weatheren!” Ember gasped. “Kite Nayward, where have you brought me?”

“Calm down, Ember,” Kite said, hoping the little witch wouldn't burst into song. “They're Murkers. Enemies of the Foundation. They want to help us.”

“Tell me Ember, where did you come from?” Shelvocke said, leaning closer with eyes full of wonder. “Who created you?”

“Kite Nayward, I don't trust him,” she whispered. “What if he's a spy.”

Shelvocke chuckled. “I can assure you, Ember I am no Weatheren spy.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in your eye,” Ember said. “Say it.”

“You'd better do as she says,” Kite whispered. “She won't take no for an answer.”

Reluctantly Shelvocke mimed the cross over his chest. “I swear I am not a Weatheren spy, cross my heart and hope to die,” he said and chuckled.

“Go on, Ember.” Kite urged. “Tell him what you told me.”

Ember's story was different this time. Skyzarke, the Umbrella Man and the Cloud Room, she spoke of it all but none of the detail was there. In a way Kite was relieved. She didn't trust Shelvocke any more than he did. But she was far cleverer than he'd believed and that worried him.

Fleer spoke first. “This must is
Patriarch
technology,” she said, almost spitting 'Patriarch' as if it left a foul taste in her throat. “How else would it know about Skyzarke?”

Shelvocke seemed doubtful. “I know the Patriarchs developed prototype memory machines but this is highly advanced,” he said. “But if the Starmaker did create it how did it come to be in the Old Coast?”

Kite knew the answer to that. “The Weatherens dug it out of a tunnel under the Thirsty Sea,” he told them. “Ember was inside a train headed for Fairweather.”

“Poor, poor, horrible Clara,” sighed Ember.

Shelvocke leaned over his desk. “Ember, what is in the Cloud Room?” he asked.

“Can't say,” Ember said.

“Tell me,” Shelvocke demanded, sounding more irritable by the second.

“Won't say,” said Ember.

“I'm not playing childish games!” said Shelvocke, clenching a fist.

Ember began to quietly hum. A sing-song tune that made Kite's skin tighten and sweat prickle his scalp.

“Tell me, damn you!” Shelvocke thumped his fist on the desk, knocking over the mysterious photograph.

The lamp on Shelvocke's desk flickered. The
Phosphene
shook as if struck by thunder.

“Calm down, Ember,” Kite said.

“I am calm,” came the reply but Ember still hummed and the lamp continued to tinkle as if the bulb was faulty.

Shelvocke rounded on him. “If you have some sway with this machine, Nayward, make it tell me what I want to know!” he growled.

Kite stared back at him. “That's her secret,” he said.

“It's s-e-c-r-e-t,” said Ember.

Shelvocke growled and wrenched the mempod from Ember's spine, silencing her.

“You might have damaged her!” Kite cried.

Ignoring him Shelvocke stormed to the window, fists clenching and unclenching. Kite had seen that dark, hungering look before. He’d seen it on the faces of profit-hungry salvagemasters and scavvies desperate for an inch of luck. He knew where it began and where it ended.

Eventually Shelvocke calm enough to return to his desk. With care he lifted the fallen frame. “Forgive me,” he whispered and set the photograph down on his desk.

A bristling silence followed. Kite waited for Shelvocke to speak again.

“So, it appears Ember leaves us with little choice,” Shelvocke said at last, his temper waning. “We must go to Skyzarke.”

Kite felt a prickle of excitement at the mention of the city. But Fleer's reaction quickly cast doubt in his mind.

“It is forbidden,” Fleer said, her frown deepening. “The Askians will not allow anyone to enter to city.”

Shelvocke glanced at her. “Your mother still holds a seat on the Council does she not?” he said. “She will help us.”

“You overestimate her influence,” Fleer said, squirming at the mention of her mother.

“So Skyzarke
does
exist then?” Kite said, looking at them in turn.

“Is that a joke, Mr.Nayward?” Shelvocke said, looking at him sharply.

“The boy doesn't know,” Fleer said. “He's not from the High Hollows.”

Shelvocke dragged sheet of thin film from his papers. A Weatheren map, similar to the one Kite had briefly owned in Dusthaven. Only this one was of the far north.

“There's your lost city, Mr.Nayward,” Shelvocke said.

Kite frowned. Shelvocke had pointed to a great tract of nothing labelled 'Hiemal' and to the nest of city in the hills surrounded by little black spiders. The name printed below was FRORE.

“I don’t understand,” Kite said.

“The Foundation likes to rename the city states it conquers, Mr.Nayward,” Shelvocke said, lowering himself into his chair. “Frore is a an old Weatheren word meaning
frozen.
Lux was not without a sense of humour. After the war, after Lux had destroyed your people, Frore was the name he gave Skyzarke.”

Fleer glanced away, unable to hide her disgust. “Every Askian knows that,” she whispered.

Kite squeezed the tip of the walking stick until his knuckles burned white. Every Askian, it seemed, except him.

34
Ghosts

“Of all the lunatic things to do!” Dr.Nightborn said, tugging the bandages tight around Kite’s ankle. “As if I didn't have enough to worry about with Fleer on one of those wretched things! You're all mad!
Mad
! Hold still will you!”

Kite winced. The burns on his legs were rust-red and blotched with purple strikes where the mosfire had scorched him. At least it wasn't murder to walk but now his skin tingled as if hot ants were crawling over it.

“And don't scratch!” Dr.Nightborn said, slapping his hand away. She finished securing the bandage with a safety pin. “I have half a mind to declare you unfit just to save you from yourself!”

“But you won't?” he asked hopefully.

Dr.Nightborn plucked her spectacles from her nose and kneaded her brow. “I
should
,” she said. “But I'm not your mother. Not that being someone's mother makes any difference on this infernal machine!”

Kite raised his eyebrows. No prizes for guessing who'd been arguing again.

Dr.Nightborn sighed. “Just don't fall off like the last one,” she said. “It's terribly bad for morale.”

“Alto you mean?” Kite said, pulling his socks over the bandages. “Birdy said he had an accident.”

“That's one way of looking at it,” Dr.Nightborn said, and began to put away her things. “I didn't get a chance to know him. Not really. He was about your age, perhaps a little older. Very angry boy. He argued with the Captain a lot.”

“I like him already,” Kite said with a grin.

“Fleer grounded him eventually,” Dr.Nightborn said. “So one day he stole one of the airmachines and took off on his own. He had some mad idea about seeing the sun. I still think Fleer blames herself.”

Kite remembered Fleer's threat. Had she been trying to warn him off to avoid another tragedy like Alto? He couldn't imagine her being so concerned with his wellbeing. More likely she didn’t want to lose another stormwing.

Just then Kite's stomach grew heavy. At the same time soft shadows shifted across the Infirmary walls. Two decks below the eternal drone of the fulgurtine's engines deepened, sending vibrations across the Dr.Nightborn’s gleaming medical equipment. The
Phosphene
was changing course.

A metallic gurgle swilled in the loudspeaker over the Infirmary door.

“Crew of the Phosphene, I have exciting news,” Shelvocke's voice rattled  out, echoing in the corridor a fraction of a second later. “We have come into possession of vital new information. Information that may finally give us an advantage over our enemies. Our new heading is north. Our destination, the Hiemal and the Askian city of Skyzarke. I must ask each and every one of you to remain alert and extra vigilant during our dangerous voyage. Should we succeed we will finally be able to strike at the Foundation.”

After Shelvocke's announcement had ended Dr.Nightborn sighed weightily. “Well, I suppose there's no avoiding it now,” she said. “Whenever Skyzarke is mentioned I can't help but feel sad.”

Skyzarke.

The name was stuck in Kite's throat - a bitter lump of frustration. He’d being trying not to think about it. About the task ahead. Sooner or later he'd have to tell Ember the truth about her beloved city. He shuddered at the thought.

Dr.Nightborn sat on the bed beside him and smiled sympathetically. “The Captain told me what happened,” she said. “You didn't know about Skyzarke?”

“Ersa never told me anything,” Kite said, shaking his head.

“Ersa?” Dr.Nightborn said, frowning.

Kite slipped on his boots. “The Waste Witch,” he said.

Dr.Nightborn looked thoughtful. “I once knew an Ersa. A very long time ago,” she said.

“She wouldn't tell me anything about the Askians,” Kite mumbled. “Said it was for my own good. Sometimes I wondered if she trusted me.”

Dr.Nightborn gave him a sympathetic smile. “When we get to the High Hollows you will understand,” she said.

“The High Hollows?”

Dr.Nightborn hunched her shoulders excitedly. “Home,” she said.

Home.
The way Dr.Nightborn said the word surprised him. As if for once had true meaning. “Is Fleer going too?” he asked.

Dr.Nightborn's lovely smile faded. “I suspect she will want to see her grandmother,” she said. “They are so very alike. Besides the Captain has sent her as his representative.”

Kite nodded. “She seems very loyal to Shelvocke,” he said.

“Fleer owes the Captain her life,” Dr.Nightborn said. “And for that same reason, I owe him my loyalty.”

There was sadness in Dr.Nightborn's words. Patiently Kite waited for her to tell him more.

Dr.Nightborn sighed. “I suppose you should know. It is as much my story as Fleer's,” she said. “Fleer was training with the Watchers, the Askian soldiery, out on the ice. She was thirteen. Already a skilled pilot, even back then. My husband was in command that day. He'd always been so proud that Fleer had volunteered. I, of-course, wanted her to be a nurse but no, little Fleer had decided from a very early age that delivering babies and fixing bones was not for her!”

Kite smiled at that. Try as he might he couldn't imagine Fleer Nightborn being anything other than a stormwing pilot.

“That day she was piloting the snow-yacht. Ordinarily her father wouldn't take such risks but every day in the Hiemal is a risk to an Askian.  They were attacked by the Cloudguard,” Dr.Nightborn said, and paused to shake her head. “Mosfire is a terrible weapon. It spares no-one. Not husbands. Not children.”

Kite looked at his boots. He recalled how he'd felt after Ersa had died - angry, frustrated and confused beyond words. Even now that memory of helplessness made him shudder.

“For a time I believed I had lost them both.” Dr.Nightborn said. “But the Watchers only found his body. I joined their search. We searched every hiding place for her. I refused to give up. And, after three days, we found her. She had been taken to Cold Bastion, a Cloudguard fort near Skyzarke. An infernal place. Two other survivors died during their interrogation. Fleer somehow survived. The mosfire had left her arm terribly burned. The pain must have been unbearable. Those men promised her medical help if she told them where the High Hollows were but she told them nothing.”

Sick to his stomach somehow Kite felt guilty too, as if all his recent thoughts about Fleer somehow seemed suddenly foolish and unforgivable. “How did she escape?” he asked.

“In the end it was pure chance that Captain Shelvocke raided Cold Bastion at that time,” Dr.Nightborn said. “He'd come to free Lieutenant Welkin. In the filthy cells he found Fleer. He could have left her there. But instead he chose to save a life. One good deed that changed so much, Kite Nayward. He returned to me not only my daughter but the one thing the Askians had lost for two centuries - hope.”

Kite had managed to do without hope for much of his life. Somehow he didn't think Shelvocke would be the one to change all that. But there was no denying Dr.Nightborn's sincerity.

Dr.Nightborn got up from the bed and went to the cupboards beside her desk. “Since you have your own bunk now, you can have these back,” she said, returning with a bundle of familiar objects. “I made a few repairs.”

Kite gladly took his old gear. The faithful old patchcoat and goggles. The threadbare shirt he'd worn to rags. Now though they'd been scrubbed clean and patched with squares of old uniform serge.

“Thanks, Doctor,” he said.

The bandages pinched as he stood. His legs were still stiff as rusted girders. Instinctively he reached for the walking stick. He clenched his fist and took his hand away, leaving it resting against the bed post.

“Please, be careful out there,” Dr.Nightborn said. “There are so few of us. It's almost a miracle having three of us on-board now. I'd like it to remain that way.”

“Me too,” Kite said. “Thanks.”

Kite threw his bag over his shoulder and walked to the Infirmary door, pushing against the resistance in his legs. On threshold he stopped, thoughts snagged on something Dr.Nightborn had said. He turned back.

“What about the other girl?” he asked.

Dr.Nightborn stared at him blankly.

“I saw her the other day,” Kite said, hovering a hand. “About this high. Twelve or thirteen. Definitely an Askian.”

“You must have been mistaken, Kite,” Dr.Nightborn said. “There are no children on-board the Phosphene and the three of us are the only Askians.”