Waybound (34 page)

The ring bird whipped left. Right. Right again.

Rippled gray walls folded over Phoebe and Micah. There were no landmarks, no indication of a route. The contorted walls bent close, forcing the kids to squeeze through a narrow gap. The ring bird hovered for a second to let them catch up, then blurred away around another curve.

They ran blindly after their guide.

Drones twirled past overhead, searching for a clear view. Aero-copters thrummed. The pounding steps of pursuing Watchmen closed in. And then came the blaring sirens of V-Stalkers, the Foundry's mechanical bloodhounds.

Micah whipped his rifle around. Phoebe ducked. He fired a flurry of rounds that ricocheted through the Furrows with a sound like rapid drumbeats.

Her muscles burned. Eyes watered, blurred. She lost sight of the ring bird, panicked. Pushed herself harder.

A pop. A sizzle. Then a horrible, gasping wheeze.

Micah collapsed to the ground.

She skidded to a stop.

He was grunting and twitching, a Watchman's shock prong buried between his shoulder blades. She saw the wires spiraling back to the extended hand of one of the mechanical soldiers.

She couldn't help him.

She wouldn't leave him.

The ring bird circled, squealing.

Watchmen reached for Phoebe.

Then the air came alive. Something whisked past her.

A figure. As soon as she made out the contour of a body, it vanished in a swirl of shade, dissolving into the Furrows.

There was a hiss. A streak of copper red.

A lash materialized out of midair. It lunged at a Watchman like a viper, impaling his chest. Then it retracted and coiled, a living thing poised, seeking a new angle to strike from.

The head of the lash whirred, a deadly drill burning white hot. Watchmen shot at it with their rifles, and Phoebe threw herself over Micah's body to protect him.

The drill viper darted. Soldiers weaved. One of them struggled, caught on something. A bundle of frayed cables—no, an arm—was wrapped around the automaton's neck.

Behind the Watchman stood a mehkan draped in a cloak that liquidly changed to mimic the surroundings. The camouflage was more than color—even its texture seemed to swim in and out of existence. The folds parted, and Phoebe saw the figure within. He was like the Mercanteer's bodyguards, woven from metal bands and peppered with black eyes.

The mehkan held the Watchman fast. His drill lash struck, slashing clean through the automaton's neck. The weapon then slithered out of sight beneath the mehkan's camouflaged cloak.

The remaining Watchmen were on alert, wildly training their weapons, seeking their invisible attacker.

One of the mechanical soldiers went for Phoebe.

A swirl of copper red shot out, an S-shaped blade whistling through the air. It sheared through the Watchman's head as if it were fog. The curved blade parted, fluttered, and returned like a pair of boomerang falcons. A mehkan of rings and scythes materialized to catch the weapon—a kailiak like Orei.

A flurry of violence erupted.

The boomerangs flew out again, only to be snared in midair and redirected by the lash. The blades carved through their enemies. The fibrous mehkan materialized and flung his weapon through the face shield of a Watchman attacking from behind. Another warrior appeared, a crane-claw mehkan flinging a cloud of copper buckshot that swarmed their foes like red hornets.

Micah sat up, woozy from the electric stun. He and Phoebe watched the interplay of mehkans and their copper-red weapons, blinking in and out of sight to level the Foundry forces with savage grace.

Dollop's words came back to her:
Noiseless…they can vanish into thin air…they wield the living weapons…

“The Aegis!” Phoebe gasped.

Mehkan faces appeared between the folds of camo cloaks, staring at the kids in cold silence. There were other ripples in space, silhouettes barely distinguishable from the Furrows.

How many were the Aegis?

The echoing purr of engines nearby. Phoebe and Micah knew that sound all too well—Cyclewynders.

The fibrous mehkan pulled the kids to their feet and draped his cloak over them. He grabbed their wrists, black eyes surfacing between sinews to stare at them. The drill-headed viper weapon wove through the mehkan as if his body were its nest.

The Aegis warrior ran, pulling them along.

The buzz of Foundry vehicles grew louder. An Aero-copter chugged. The blaring alarms of more V-Stalkers.

Phoebe focused on keeping up with the mehkan. His strides were silent, and he bounded over the ore with the unerring balance of a jungle cat. They careened through the Furrows, trying to ignore the sounds of fighting behind them.

“What the…” Micah blurted.

He was peeking beneath the cloak to see what lay ahead. Phoebe did the same. Their protector was racing pell-mell for a wall. The kids tried to pull free, but the mehkan held them fast.

They hit the wall at full speed.

And passed through. The Furrow rippled.

The surface offered no resistance. Something coarse brushed past, like a sheet of hanging burlap. The same mehkan material as the camo cloak disguised a secret passage.

They were in darkness, dragged forward by the Aegis warrior. Another partition swept aside, flooding the passage with light. They turned again and again, in and out of hidden passages.

And then they stopped.

The Furrows ended abruptly. The walls had shriveled like paper in a fire. The ore was gray, but a few yards ahead it darkened and wrinkled to inky black.

And beyond that…

It looked like a monstrous bite had been taken out of the world. The ground dropped sharply into a colossal pit like a volcanic crater. Noxious gray vapor strangled the abyss and obscured its depths with stagnant swirls. The haze rose overhead and bloomed into an impermeable black mushroom cloud that tried to smother the setting suns.

“Emberhome,” Phoebe whispered.

They turned around, but the Aegis warrior was gone.

The V-Stalker alarm grew louder, and though the black CHAR cloud hung too low for Aero-copters to pass through, their encroaching growl put the kids on edge.

There was no time for fear. Phoebe peeled off her gloves, unstrapped the Multi-Edge, and removed her skirt. She unfastened her Durall coveralls and wriggled out of them. Micah turned away, pretending not to see, and focused on shedding his metal gear. Phoebe flushed as she stood in her dingy blouse and underwear, but this was no time for shame either.

She slid back into her skirt and turned to see Micah stripped down to his T-shirt and overalls. His Foundry jumpsuit, field pack, and rifle lay in a heap.

“Boots too,” she said, bending down to unknot her laces.

“Nah, mine are just leather and rubber. Ma couldn't afford no metal. You ain't goin' in barefoot, are you?”

She slipped off her Durall boots and out popped the wadded rags she had used for padding. There was an ache where she had wounded her right foot before, and the bandage was filthy.

“No choice,” she grunted.

Micah yanked off his boots and tossed them to her.

“Wear 'em,” he insisted. “No point in openin' that cut again.”

She didn't argue. His boots stank, and they were a few sizes too small, but she was grateful.

“Ready?” she said as she stood.

He nodded.

They exhaled and took their first cautious steps.

The CHAR-blasted ore had a fragile sheen, as if it were the skin of a burn victim. The darker the ground became, the tackier it was, like wet tar. The sulfurous stink made them want to gag.

The metal-threaded diamond pattern of Phoebe's skirt shriveled like leaves, exposing the raw fabric beneath. Micah's coveralls sagged as the metal buttons disintegrated. He quickly tied the straps together to hold them up.

Something at Phoebe's hip grew hot. She reached into her pocket to see what it was.

Her father's spectacles.

The steel frames liquefied in her hands, dripping through her fingers and spattering the ore. She stared at what was left in her palm—the lenses, cracked and caked with ceremonial rust.

“Phoebe,” Micah said, taking her hand in his.

This was the last remnant of her father. Everything else was gone now. There was nothing left to lose.

She closed her fist around the lenses, squeezing until her palm hurt, until she was sure her tears were at bay.

Together Phoebe and Micah marched into Emberhome.

M
icah stumbled after Phoebe into the crater.

Looking above, he could barely see the flaming orange sky at the rim. Streaks of white whizzed overhead as stray bullets shot into the blight and dissolved. He hoped that the Aegis could hold off the Foundry. They just had to buy a little time.

After a few minutes of scrambling down the mushy surface, the ground evened out. There were weird bumps and irregular ridges like washed out sandcastles. He reached out to touch one, and the mound collapsed as if it were made of ash.

There was almost no visibility because of the haze, so he and Phoebe stuck close together. Losing sight of each other down here would be like getting separated in a blizzard.

Micah hated how the CHAR felt under his shoeless feet. Beneath a brittle top crust was a warm sludge that he would sink into if he stopped moving. He glanced back at their footprints and saw them slowly filling in, rising like black dough.

And the smell. Ugh. The metal-mold taste coated his tongue.

But the worst part was definitely the creepy, dreamlike silence. The rumbles of distant explosions were muffled as if they were underwater. The crunch of every footstep seemed to die in the air, half-formed.

“See anything?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“What if it sank? Like hundreds of years ago?” he wondered.

“Then we find it and dig it up.”

“Gonna get dark soon,” he mumbled, looking at the red ring of dusk that marked the lip of the pit. “We should split up and…”

He glanced at Phoebe. Her eyes were closed and her lips moving as if she were lost in a trance. Micah didn't want to interrupt her, but he didn't feel much like wasting time with her mumbo-jumbo stuff either.

There was a rumble up above. Aero-copters would have to fly over the corrosive cloud, but Micah wondered if they might still be able to spot him and Phoebe from up there. He squinted into the murk for a hint of searchlights but didn't see any.

Phoebe began to wander, eyes closed. He caught up and overheard the words she was muttering over and over.

“Guide me, Makina. Illuminate the path.”

Micah was getting anxious, but he didn't want to show it. He watched impatiently as Phoebe turned around a couple of times, wandered off again, then stopped.

She opened her eyes.

Somewhere in the hazy distance was a fuzzy pinprick of light. It stood out against the blight, like a lone white star in a foggy, black night. A beacon.

“What the…” Micah said, his voice pinched with excitement.

She breathed a noise, something between a sob and a laugh.

They went toward the light.

It was hard going. They had to pull their feet from the clinging muck, and it was exhausting and slow. But the closer they got, the more brightly the light shone.

Micah's feet slowed him down. The splintered CHAR crust scratched his soles with each step. It was hard to tell beneath the tarry glop, but he was pretty sure he was bleeding.

Wearing Micah's work boots, Phoebe was already far ahead. But she saw him lagging behind and trudged back. She grabbed his hand. Not yanking him, not trying to force him to speed up.

Staying together.

The only sounds were their crackling steps and panting breath. Micah forgot his pain. As they approached, they had to cover their eyes, the light was so bright.

There it was—the Occulyth.

It was just a few yards ahead, lying atop the CHAR like a feather floating on a black pond. They fell to their knees before it, and the light dimmed, so that it no longer dazzled them.

As if the Occulyth knew they were there.

It was smaller than they had expected, about the size of a saucer, a star with seven rounded points. A cloud of light danced inside the transparent form, weaving among dark squiggles that looked like veins. Its texture was like jelly, but dry and tough.

And it pulsed.

“It's alive,” Micah gasped.

“It's not metal,” Phoebe said, reaching out to it carefully. “But it doesn't look like anything from our world either.”

“Don't touch it.”

She nodded. Using her skirt, Phoebe cautiously picked up the Occulyth. She wrapped it securely, and its light dulled. The kids stood shoulder to shoulder, both of them staring at it in reverent silence as if it were a newborn baby.

“Praise Makina,” Phoebe whispered.

Micah looked at her. Her long, filthy face was aglow. She
was
Loaii, he knew that now. The Occulyth was reflected in her golden brown eyes. They looked deeper than he'd ever known, like he had been too stupid to ever really see them before.