The Stolen Child (57 page)

Arsha
followed her gaze
, noting the disarray with an expression that slowly shifted to alarm.  
As the girls took stock of their situation, the platform suddenly shook, and a thunderous roar echoed up from somewhere far below.
 

“
We're stuck here, aren't we?
”
Arsha
said, looking at the broken bridge.

Rachael gave her a gloomy look.

“Yeah, I think so.  
S
erves you for coming after me, I guess.”  She saw Arsha's expression.  “Sorry.  I didn't mean it like that.”

“
W
e're getting out of here.  
S
omehow.”  
Arsha said, firmly.
 

“Your dad left us.”

“He must have thought we weren't coming back.  He wouldn't have... he's probably coming back with the ship,”
Arsha said, her lower lip trembling slightly.
 

Another bellowing
reverberation
ran up the tower.  
Moments later they both heard a movement above them, a little like the crackling of ice-cubes in the glass
.  
She looked up to see a maze of cracks slowly spreading across several of the black panes above them.  Arsha let out a shriek
as shards of black glass rained down
towards
them.  
They shielded their faces as broken splinters flew at them from every direction.  Rachael felt the shrapnel biting at her skin, and she saw one shard draw a perfectly neat red line across Arsha's forearm.  
As the black rain stopped they looked up a
t each other, blinking, breath coming in short gasps
.  
Arsha clutched at the cut on her arm, blood oozing between her fingers.  Another tremor ran through the chamber, and they both heard a groaning sound from up above.
 

“Oh Fates,” Arsha
whimpered
as
she looked up.  High above them,
one of the long spars that formed the skeleton of the dome
began to shudder and twist.

“Arsh, I think we're in real trouble here,” Rachael said, touching her fingers to a cut on her face.  Blood was already running down her cheek.

With a terrible
moan
the huge metal beam began to tear free, seeming to sag at first, until the
end
snapped loose and the whole beam began to fall directly towards them.  It seemed to happen so slowly, so gently that
at first
Rachael didn't even feel scared.  It took a moment for the perspective to
snap
into place.  The iron beam was huge, maybe a hundred feet from end to end and wider than two grown men, and it was hurtling down towards them.

“Rachael... Fates...”
Arsha
whispered hoarsely, scrabbling to her feet.  They both took faltering steps backwards as the huge mass of iron hurtled towards them.  The platform was barely twenty feet across in all, and they had no way off.  
T
hey could only guess where the falling beam would land.  Huddling close to each other they moved towards the edge of the platform, each of them whispering desperate prayers.  Rachael reached out and took her sister's hand, squeezing it tightly.

It was Arsha who saw that they had both guessed wrong.  She threw herself forwards, tugging at Rachael's hand, yanking her forcefully along as she dove past the gateway, throwing herself forwards onto the ground.  Just behind them Rachael felt the colossal weight of the mass of iron as it passed just inches from their heels.  The beam struck the platform like a sledgehammer.  The whole building shook, and Rachael was thrown forwards on a wave of air that hit like a thunderclap.  She slammed into the ground, skidding forwards on her elbows
as
the edge of the platform
rushed
towards her.

She couldn't stop in time.  As she
was about to plunge
over the edge she felt Arsha's hand tighten around hers, and a moment later the whole of her weight seemed to focus itself like a solid blow against her shoulder.  She dangled halfway over the
lip of the platform
,
restrained
only by Arsha's tenuous grip on her arm.  All the air seemed to have been sucked out of her, and no matter how she wished she could pull herself back, all she could seem to do was stare into the vast drop below.  
The pit seemed to go down forever, nothing but blackness below her.
 

She felt the platform shift underneath her body, and it took a moment to realise that it was Arsha pulling her clear of the edge,
inch by inch
.

Head spinning, she found a purchase and pulled herself away from the gap,
the sharp tips of the gauntlet scraping against the iron of the platform.
 

“Thanks,”
s
he gasped, blinking in confusion.

“Come on, we should go,” Arsha replied, gesturing towards the fallen beam.  It took Rachael's befuddled mind a moment to grasp what she meant.  The beam had landed astride the chasm that surrounded the pillar, joining it to the rest of the chamber.

Beneath their feet the platform was shaking violently.  The impact of the beam seemed to have cracked one of the supports, and the whole thing felt like it might collapse any second.  
Arsha
quickly leapt
up onto the beam, turning to help
Rachael
up as they both struggled to keep their footing.

They ran the length of the
beam
without even daring to look down at the fall below.  Terrible shuddering groans emitted constantly from the entire chamber as their feet pounded against the body of the iron spar.  It held just long enough for them to drop down onto the floor of the main chamber.  As they fled the room, a sickening crunch resounded through the air as the platform gave way, crumbling down into the pit with the massive beam sliding in after it.  Arsha turned back to watch, eyes wide, until Rachael grabbed at her sleeve.

“Come on, let's go,” Rachael screamed over the constant groaning of the building.  Another ceiling pane crazed with a spider web of cracks and began to disintegrate, raining black razor shards into the hall.  They ran out of the sagging arched doors and into the dark corridor beyond.

Emerging at the far end of the arched tunnel, they found themselves blinking in the sunlight that streamed in through the shattered outer windows of the tower.  As their sight returned, they looked out on the
rusted city
and saw a sea of crumbling towers beginning to sway and topple.  Parts of the buildings were falling away, raining down into the dark mists below.  Many of the towers seemed to be crowned in a glittering haze; thousands of falling shards of black glass glinting as the
y
caught the light.

The tremors were nearly continuous now, the building shuddering and groaning beneath their feet.  
There was a gaping hole where the elevator had been.  Daring to lean out a little over the edge, Rachael glimpsed the twisted remains of the platform, far below.  From the look in her sister's eyes, she could tell that her expression had said it all.
 

“There might be another way down, I guess,” Rachael said, not really feeling it.  Arsha did not reply.  Her attention had been drawn to something outside of the tower.  As Rachael followed the girl's eyes she found her gaze settling on a tiny but rapidly growing black dot, skimming over the rooftops.  
Arsha began waving frantically.  At first nothing seemed to happen, but then Rachael
saw that the dot was turning, coming closer.  Soon enough, she recognised the shape of the Zephyr, blew light crackling around its floatstones as the propellers blurred.
  Arsha let out a whoop of joy.

“See?  They're coming for us.  I told you they'd come,”
s
he cried, punching the air in excitement.

The Zephyr
closed the distance quickly
,
on a path
that
would take it right past the floor where they stood.  
She could see Micah standing at the wheel, whilst Ilona stood at the prow, watching them through some kind of lens.
  Arsha ran right up to the edge of the building, holding
on to a window frame
as she eagerly watched the vessel approach.

The building shifted again, beginning to slope
forwards
at an alarming angle.  Tremors continued to shake the room, and Rachael was certain that she feel them growing in intensity.  With nothing close to hold onto, she could barely keep her footing as the ground swayed underneath
them
, seeming to move further with each
pendulum swing
.  An
awful
realisation settled on her.

“Arsh.  He can't stop.  The building's coming down Arsh.  Nothing's staying still.  
They
can't stop for long enough.”

Arsha turned to look at Rachael,
eyes widening
as this thought sunk in.

“Arsh, we have to jump,” Rachael said, voice trembling as she spoke the words.

“No.  We can't.  No,” Arsha stammered, h
elpl
essly.

“
We have to
.  It's the only way out.”

Arsha looked out over the edge, and Rachael could see the fear in her eyes.

“Arsh, go.  Go now.”

Arsha shook her head and back
ed
away from the edge.

“Arsha, jump!” Rachael screamed in her ear,
giving
her a sudden shove.  Off balance, the girl was forced to run down the sloping floor towards the edge as the entire building lurched forwards with them.

They jumped.

For a breathless moment the emptiness took them, and there was only the wind.  The Zephyr seemed to slide beneath their feet, smooth and graceful.  She saw
the two figures on the deck
looking up
at
them, faces aghast.

For a moment, everything seemed still.

Rachael came down hard on the back of the deck, her momentum carrying her into the back railing, pain exploding across her shoulder
s
as she crashed into a heavy coil of rope.

Arsha missed the back of the deck by inches.  Rachael watched in horror as
she
fell past the ship, her hand reaching out to grab at the railing which was just too far
away
.  
She saw Micah letting go of the wheel to reach out towards her, too late to try to catch Arsh's open hand.  
She saw the look of hopeless and desperate terror in her sister's eyes, fingertips outstretched to grasp at nothing.  And then she looked down at the city below,
the shape of the buildings hazy and indistinct
.  Distant,
but
inevitable.

Without a thought Rachael snatched up one end of the rope, heavy and rough against her palm, and in one smooth arc
she
dove straight over the edge of the deck.

She straightened her body out, pointing her toes like a diver, trying to gain as much speed as possible.  The wind whipped her hair into her eyes and tore at her clothes, the sound of it roaring in her ears.  Below her, Arsha's expression was caught between terror and wild hope.  Rachael plunged towards her, the heavy rope trailing out behind her in the freezing air.

With her free hand she reached out,
the darkly gleaming metal fingers of the gauntlet
outstretched as she slowly closed the distance.  The drop below them was long, long enough that they cou
ld scarcely
even see the ground, but the distance was growing shorter all the time, and Rachael wasn't sure how much rope she had left.  Arsha reached out her hand and their fingertips brushed,
but could not quite catch
.  She reached out again, the distance closed a little more, and she got her hand around Arsha's wrist,
iron fingertips digging into the girl's skin
.  Arsha grabbed her arm with both hands, squeezing tight.  
Even through the metal plating, Rachael could feel how tightly the girl was holding on.
  Barely
a second
later the rope ran out.

For a
moment it seemed as if she felt nothing at all
.  There was sickening pop and then
sudden,
searing agony.  
Her hand had become a distant thing, something that didn't belong to her anyore
.  
T
he rope flew out of her grasp as her arm
flopped uselessly
, dislocated at the shoulder.  For a moment all she could do was scream.

Eventually t
he pain subsided enough for her head to clear, and she realised what had just happened.  She was falling to a certain death, and she had no way out.  The sudden surge of adrenaline cleared her head a little, and in her terror she
couldn't
even think of the pain.  She looked at Arsha, who looked back at her with tears streaking her eyes.

“You shouldn't have come after me,” Arsha
yelled at her, over the wind
.  For a moment Rachael was stunned

“How can you even say that?”
s
he
yelled back
.  Arsha bit her lip, but didn't reply.  Then Rachael realised that what she saw in the girl's eyes wasn't just sadness, but gratitude.

Tears were welling up in her own eyes.  She didn't even dare to look down.  She didn't want to know how long they had left.  For a moment, she felt a wild hope that they might just stay like this, forever.  
As she stared into her sister's eyes, she felt her breath catch in her throat.
 

“Arsha,”
she gasped.
  “Your face...”

Creeping up from Arsha's neck, like frost on a windowpane, was a fine pattern of rust, as if the skin itself was corroding.  She looked down at Arsha's arm and saw the rust growing across her
body
, seeming to spread from
where Arsha's hand touched the rusted metal plating around Rachael's fingers
.  Where their palms met she felt a burning heat, and
whisps of dark smoke seeped
from between their clasped hands.  With her free hand Arsha touched her face and flakes of rust fell away, the skin a raw pink underneath, as if she had picked away a scab.