Daywards (19 page)

‘Sorry if we woke you, Ma,' Dara said, but the old woman waved the apology aside.

‘Plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead. Good to see you up and about again, though. Is it still raining?'

‘Yeah,' Eyna said. ‘Too wet to hunt.'

‘No matter. Ma Saria's eyes twinkled in the firelight. ‘Gives us time to make a few decisions.'

‘What's this plan, then, Ma?' Dara was amazed at her nerve, simply blurting out a question like that. If she'd done that to Uncle Xani, or Da Janil, she'd have been told off, at least. Probably given a sharp whack to drive home the message. Ma Saria didn't seem to mind.

‘Not a plan. I told you, just an idea.'

The fire was crackling nicely now, and Ma retrieved a water can – sky knew where she'd gotten it, but it was the same as the ones they used back at the clan cave – and eased it into the coals. Then she sat down again and turned to Dara. Her eyes weren't twinkling any longer and the faint amusement that always seemed to hang about her had vanished. Now she looked into Dara with such intensity that Dara found it impossible to tear her own eyes away. The old woman's dark gaze met her own and caused a shiver of gooseflesh across Dara's skin. The cave and the fire and even Eyna seemed to vanish, and for a moment there was nothing in Dara's world but those eyes.

‘You see the city?' Ma Saria's voice had edges. Dara had to force herself to think, to respond.

‘Yeah.'

‘And your brother?'

This time Dara simply replied with a nod, which seemed satisfactory.

‘What did you think of it?'

‘I …' She struggled to find words that could capture the immensity of the coldness, the disconnected feeling that had pressed down on her from above, and even hidden the earth itself from her during her time in those plascrete canyons. It was impossible, though. ‘I hated it.'

Ma Saria nodded. ‘And was Uncle Xani lying when he told us he'd sent you and Jaran off there?'

‘Sort of. He sent Jaran.'

The old woman looked unsurprised. ‘But not you?'

‘No. I just followed to see where Jaran was going. They both knew I was there, though. They wanted me to go.' She related the basics of what Jaran had told her about Xani's manipulations, which in turn led to her tale of being trapped in the ancient tower and her escape from it. When she finished, Ma Saria's eyes narrowed.

‘That explains why I lost you for a while.'

‘Lost me?'

‘Think, girl. You and I looked all the way to the Darklands a while back. You reckon I can't reach as far as the old city? I was following you – most of the time, anyway.'

The water was boiling now and Ma reached over and unwound a leaf-wrapped bundle on the ground beside her, removing a few strips of dried meat and throwing them into the water can before re-tying the bundle. Then, from a skin pouch, she added a couple of handfuls of roots and other bits and pieces from the forest.

‘So,' she continued, ‘almost as soon as Da Janil is gone and sent back to the sky, Uncle Xani takes it on himself to trick you into going off and getting locked up in the one place in the world nobody's gonna search for you, and a few days later a whole bunch of Nightpeople drop in uninvited. I reckon that man's got some questions to answer.'

‘They weren't uninvited,' Eyna interjected. ‘Uncle Xani must have called them somehow. From the Eye.'

‘Possibly.' Ma Saria thought about this. ‘Or perhaps not. Either way we gotta be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusions about any of this. Be scientific, that's what Da would have told us.'

‘Have you ever heard of New London City, Ma?' Dara asked.

‘Nope.' Saria shook her head. ‘Never. It must be one of the other skycities. I recall Da talking about a few others from time to time, but he always said they were all gone, just like the one you visited.'

‘He must have been wrong.'

‘He might have been.' A curious look flashed briefly across Ma's face – a combination of anger, grief and sadness, which Dara barely noticed before it vanished again. ‘Though I'd be surprised. Da Janil wasn't the sort of bloke to make mistakes. At least, not ones like that. If he knew there was another skycity out there somewhere and he chose not to tell us ‘bout it, then he had good reasons.'

‘He probably didn't want them to find us. He would have known this would happen.' It seemed like the most logical explanation to Dara.

‘That's one possibility.'

Dara waited for her to mention the alternatives, but Ma didn't elaborate.

In the firepit, the crackling flames continued to grow, pushing back the darkness, and in their midst the water can continued to bubble away, giving off an increasingly appealing smell, until Dara's mouth was watering.

None of them spoke again for a long time, though Dara and Eyna exchanged a couple of concerned glances. Ma Saria seemed to have withdrawn into herself. Her eyes were fixed on the flames, and her stillness reminded Dara of a lizard or a coldblood, right at the end of the day, basking in the last rays of sunlight.

So when she did speak again, it was almost a shock.

‘You better get that out.' Ma indicated the food on the fire, and then watched while Eyna used a stout stick to hook the can out of the flames and set it on the sand beside the firepit to cool.

Ma Saria then looked at them both. ‘Okay, here's what I reckon. Somehow, for whatever reason, this “New London ” mob want something from us. Probably you kids. That's the only reason I can think of for them to be here, unless either of you knows anything to the contrary?'

‘Why do you think it's us?' Eyna asked, and Ma Saria's face creased into a grim smile.

‘That's how Nightpeople operate.' The girls exchanged a worried glance, and then Dara remembered something Drake had told her.

‘Ma! Are you feeling okay?'

Ma Saria stared at her. ‘No worse than usual.'

‘The Nightpeople told me you were ill, that they needed to find you so that they could save you.'

‘Ha!' The old woman's response was half-laugh, half a snort of utter derision. ‘Was that the best they could come up with? Don't you worry about it, this old girl's as fit as she ever was.'

But Dara remembered all the inexplicable bits of tech that Drake and Blin had at their disposal, and, despite Ma Saria's reassurances, she was still concerned.

‘But how can you be certain? Perhaps they know something we don't?'

‘Listen, child.' Ma's expression softened. ‘When you've been around as long as I have, when you've spent your whole life flowing in an' out of your body and mind through the Earthmother, you get a pretty sharp sense of when things are right and when they're not. I'm fine, okay? But it's interestin' to know that they're looking for me as much as they are you two.'

They all digested this new information. Then Ma Saria continued. ‘So it stands to reason that the safest place for all three of us is somewhere else.'

‘What's wrong with here?' Dara gestured around the cavern. ‘We've got food and water, and we're deep underground so their tech can't find us …'

‘Only a matter of time before they do,' Ma replied. ‘Or before one of us gets caught out in the forest or something. No, the safest thing we can do at the moment, I reckon, is get moving and head away from this area. Make it so that you two, at least, have got some chance of living out the rest of your lives without worrying all the time about being grabbed and poked and taken from out of your own bodies again.'

‘But what about all the others?' Eyna objected. ‘We can't just leave them.'

‘We won't. We'll get them, or as many as want to come, on the way out. Kids only, though. Those who can walk in the sun with us we'll take along; everyone else'll have to take their chances with the Nightpeople.'

‘Couldn't we just …' Eyna began to argue, but Dara put a hand out and rested it on her cousin's arm, stopping her before Ma had to justify her decision. She knew why. She could see the reasons for it, even if they were awful.

‘No, cuz, Ma's right. The nights belong to the Nightpeople. You saw those hummers. Night's when they're at their strongest, and it's been that way for a long, long time. Our only chance of getting safely out of this area is to move when they can't. In daylight. Anyone who's not fully viable will only make it more dangerous for everyone else. Even Uncle Xani knew that.'

‘Eh?'

‘That's why he sent Jaran to take me to the city. We're both viable. He wanted us moving in daylight, when we'd be safer from the Nightpeople, just in case. That's why he didn't do it himself, or send one of the other uncles. It makes sense, when you think about it.'

Eyna didn't reply, which Dara took as agreement.

Then Ma Saria spoke again. ‘Don't worry, child. I've known our clan a long time, and they're a tough bunch. They'll be right.'

‘But the Nightpeople might …'

‘Anything they wanted to do to us, they've done already, except of course find you two. And if they only wanted us out of the way, they'd have seen to that before we even knew they were around. No, most of our family'll be all right if left to their own resources.'

‘How will we get the littlies out, though?' Dara asked.

Ma looked unworried as she retrieved a spoon from her bag and set about serving up the thick broth.

‘We'll just go and take them.'

‘They're all being guarded.'

‘I got ways of dealing with guards, if I have to.'

‘How?'

‘That's not for you to know, child. Not yet.'

Dara accepted her food and tucked in to it enthusiastically. She hadn't realised how hungry she was until the cooking smell had filled the cave, but now she shovelled the hot, rich food into her mouth with gusto.

‘Careful, girl!' Ma Saria exclaimed. ‘You'll choke yourself.'

‘Sorry, Ma.' Dara grinned through a mouthful of thick meat. ‘I haven't eaten anything this good in a while. Nightpeople food's not too nice.'

‘I know.' Smiling, Ma grimaced at some long-forgotten recollection. ‘I've only eaten it a few times myself, an' I reckon that's a few times too many.'

The solid feeling of the food in her belly and the sudden change in Ma's demeanour brought a warm feeling flooding in and Dara felt herself relax. Eyna, though, was sitting in withdrawn silence, her food untouched.

‘You better watch out, cuz. If you don't eat that soon, I'm gonna steal it from you.'

Dara's attempt to joke her cousin out of her melancholic mood failed. Eyna turned to Ma.

‘When will we go?' she asked, and just like that the tense atmostphere returned, along with the knot in Dara's belly.

‘As soon as the rain stops. Once we get a bit of proper sunshine. Possibly tomorrow, possibly a week from now.'

The answer, which as far as Dara was concerned wasn't an answer at all, seemed to satisfy Eyna, who picked up her food and began eating.

After they'd finished and cleaned up, the three made their way back out to the entry cavern and sat basking in the grey remains of the afternoon, while the sheeting rain dripped in long threads across the cavemouth above. Dara pointed at the ledge that shielded the ancient hand marks from casual observation.

‘Do you reckon whoever made those imagined they'd still be here all this time later?'

‘I doubt it,' Ma Saria replied. ‘Most people who know anything about the world out here understand that nothing lasts forever.'

‘The Nightpeople don't seem to think that. That lot seem to think they have all the answers to everything.'

Ma laughed at that, a solid, deep chuckle.

‘They'll work it out. Might take them a bit longer than the rest of us, though.'

Then Ma asked Dara to relate her trip to the city again, this time slowly and in greater detail, and Dara obliged, talking through the long afternoon, stopping here and there to respond to occasional interjections and questions from the other two. Then, as the sun set and the forest beyond the cavemouth retreated into the twilight, so too did the three of them, returning back inside and re-stoking the fire before settling beside it again.

‘Ma Saria,' Dara asked, ‘can I ask a question?'

‘Sure.'

‘Once we get the others, where are we gonna go?'

Ma Saria fixed Dara with her black, twinkling stare.

‘Where do you reckon?'

‘The Darklands?'

Ma smiled. ‘That's what I had in mind.'

Dara didn't know why, but that felt right, somehow, that decision. Eyna had gone all silent again, and Dara thought her cousin was going to withdraw back into herself at the thought of leaving, but then Ma Saria leaned over and took the girl's chin between her thumb and forefinger, raising Eyna's face to her own and peering deep and hard into her eyes.

‘Anyone ever tell you ‘bout the woman you were named for?'

Eyna, mute, shook her head.

‘You got the same name as Da Janil's own mother. Eyna Mann. And she probably came as close as any Nightperson ever did to understanding what it was to be a Darklander. She was one of the only Nightpeople to ever actually walk on the earth and sink her toes into the Earthmother. And she was a scientist, too. She was the one who set Da Janil and Da Lari on their paths. She was a brave woman, that one. And when she disappeared into the Darklands, everyone in the skycity – even your Da – they all reckoned she'd been swallowed up by the land, but I've always thought different. I reckon she went home to it. Just like we're gonna do. All of us …'

Ma froze, and stiffened suddenly, gasping a sharp, short breath which brought the two young girls to their feet.

‘Ma? What's wrong?'

For a moment it seemed as if the old woman was about to pass out. Her eyes glazed over and she swayed forward and backwards, teetering precariously towards the hot coals in the firepit, until Dara grabbed and steadied her.