The Blood Debt (41 page)

Skender sank down next to him and looked behind them. He could see Sal peering out of the crack in the wall, and waved. Sal raised a hand just enough to show that he had seen them. Then Skender turned to Mawson, remembering how the man’kin in the Divide had told him that Mawson was ‘gone’. It hadn’t meant that Mawson was dead, just that he was temporarily out of action, thanks to the Change-sink and the Homunculus.

‘How long do you think it’ll take for him to recover?’ he asked Kemp.

‘How should I know?’

‘Use your ears,’
said the man’kin,
‘and your eyes. The evidence of both senses will give you the answer you seek.’

Skender jumped as Mawson’s stone form shook, raising a small shower of dust that had settled into his angular lines. His face moved like an elaborate clockwork machine, jumping by increments from expression to expression. His mouth didn’t open when he spoke, but his stone eyes tracked.

‘Listen to me, Mawson,’ said Kemp. ‘I need you to talk to the man’kin around us. What do they want? Why are they destroying everything?’

‘They are not destructive. They are freeing the stones from captivity.’’

‘What stones?’

‘The ones bound into walls and roads and other human artefacts.’

‘Is that all they want?’

‘For now.’

‘Will they attack us?’

‘I cannot say. Their natures are imprecise.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Their meanings are clouded. They are ... frightened, you might say?

Skender caught the slight hesitation. Fear wasn’t something he normally associated with man’kin.

Kemp, obviously used to deciphering the confusing speech of Mawson, didn’t pause.

‘Frightened of what?’

‘The one from the Void.’

Skender sat up straighter at the familiar phrase. ‘The Homunculus! What do you know about it?’

‘We
know that its existence is inimical to us.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that is its nature.’

‘What if I told you there was nothing to be frightened of? Could you reassure the man’kin out there, tell them not to be afraid?’

‘There
is
reason to be afraid.’

‘But it’s just two people — twins, in one body.’

‘They do not belong in this world.’

Skender gave up. This wasn’t the time for a philosophical discussion about the nature of the twins. ‘Can you at least tell the other man’kin that
we
aren’t their enemies? All we want to do is go home.’

‘They know what I know: that you intend us no harm. Beyond that, I cannot speak for them. These are untamed ‘kin. They are not as civilised as I am.’

‘Well, thanks for trying. At least they won’t be able to hurt us if we stick with the Homunculus.’

‘Unless one of them falls on us,’ said Kemp.

Skender looked up to see Sal waving frantically at him. ‘Wait here. I’ll see what he wants.’

He checked that the space between their shelter and the crack was clear, then dashed across. The sound of the man’kin at work was no less disturbing for knowing that they were intent on liberation — in their own way — not wanton destruction. He vividly remembered the fury of the man’kin he and Sal had encountered in the Divide: Mawson’s use of the word ‘untamed’ was odd but completely appropriate. A misunderstanding could have serious consequences.

He scrambled into the crack. The first thing he noticed was the body of an unconscious bandit lying face-down further up the corridor.

‘What happened?’

‘We’re blocking their emergency exit,’ Sal said. ‘We can expect more of them as the man’kin work their way closer to their front door. What’s the situation out there?’

Skender explained the little he and Kemp had learned from Mawson. ‘We should be safe enough,’ he concluded, ‘but there are no guarantees.’

‘We’ll just have to hope for the best, then. It’s not as if we have much choice.’

Sal clambered down to help Skender’s mother up the rough stairs. She assisted as best she could, but her grip was dismayingly weak. Skender tried not to think about the journey that lay ahead of them — not just through the ruins, but across the entire Divide as well. He didn’t know what Sal had in the pack slung across his shoulders, but he doubted it contained enough food and water for all of them.

When Skender had eased his mother to the ground on the far side of the crack in the wall, watching warily as he did for man’kin, he climbed back up to help with Behenna’s dead weight. The Homunculus pushed with Sal from below, then clambered up and over to help Skender on the other side. The artificial body looked even more unusual in the light of day. When the twins’ limbs didn’t exactly overlap, Skender half expected to be able to see through them. That wasn’t the case at all. They were blurry around the edges but not translucent.

Working together, they managed to get Behenna out of the crack. Sal scrambled down after him.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘all we have to do is get Kemp, and —’

He stopped, looking across the empty space to where the albino and Mawson were hiding. Skender followed his gaze. Every muscle in his body stiffened at what he saw.

Kemp was on his knees, facing them. Pirelius, as shaggy and dangerous as a giant mad dog, stood behind him. One hand gripped a bunch of Kemp’s hair, forcing his head back; the other hand pressed a large knife to his throat. The bandit leader’s glare was malignant and full of loathing.

Pirelius cocked his chin. The message was clear.
Over here. Now.

Sal pointed at his chest.
Just me?

Pirelius shook his head.
All of you.
The blade bit into Kemp’s skin, sending a tiny rivulet of crimson down his throat.
Don’t push your luck.

‘I guess we do as he says,’ Sal said.

Skender couldn’t take his eyes off the gleam of the blade. ‘What does he want?’

‘Let’s ask him.’ Sal straightened and stepped out of cover.

* * * *

The flyer swooped precipitously close to the heavy lifter, and Shilly did exactly as Chu had suggested she do: gesture rudely at it. The wing’s pilot — the same handsome, arrogant man who had accused Chu of being a fraud — returned the compliment and glided away.

‘Ignore him,’ said Chu. ‘There’s nothing he can do. If they were going to pop our bubble, they would’ve done so ages ago.’

‘What are they doing here, then?’

‘I guess they want to find out what
we’re
doing. Miners are always looking for new leads. And who knows what the man’kin will leave behind in their wake?’

Shilly peered over the side of the gondola at the migration below. She could make out the individual frontrunners, but the full extent of their numbers was hidden from her view by dust. And more were coming around the bend of the Divide. It looked as though every man’kin for a thousand kilometres was uprooting and moving on.

Their intentions were unknown. And when she looked ahead to the Aad, at the clouds rising from the ruins, her uncertainty took on an urgent note.

Marmion came forward, holding onto stanchions to keep his balance as the lifter swayed beneath him.

‘Any word from Sal?’

‘Nothing.’ The continuing silence was yet another cause for concern. ‘Is there anything you can do to hurry things along? We’re almost on your territory again.’

‘We’re flying, Shilly, not sailing. I’m sure the last thing Chu wants is us blowing her off course.’

‘Couldn’t have said it more politely myself,’ said the flyer, ‘but we’re not far off now, anyway. If you guys want to start talking about somewhere to touch down, that would be good. I’d argue against using the anchors, just in case we need to get away quickly. When we find Skender and the others, we can use the ladders and ropes to haul them up and get them away.’

Shilly glanced at Marmion to see how he would react to the idea of rescuing the Homunculus, but his face didn’t change.

‘What about the tower?’ he asked, pointing at the ruins. ‘Could we attach the heavy lifter to that and climb down from there?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Chu said. ‘I’ll aim for it and we’ll see what the air is like.’

‘Well, that’s something we
can
help you with. Every warden is taught to see the wind.’

‘Really?’ Chu looked deeply envious for a moment. ‘Then I guess you’ll come in useful after all. Tell me when you’re ready and you can start giving me directions. That’ll make my life a lot easier.’

Shilly edged away as Marmion closed his eyes and concentrated. The small amount of the Change Marmion called on didn’t add much to that already buzzing in and around the structure of the heavy lifter. But she felt the shift in the world as his mind interacted with it in much the same way as a musician might shift key in the middle of a song.

Chu watched the warden with all the attention she could spare. Her desire seemed as keen as Shilly’s. Both of them lacked the innate potential for the Change that made Sky Wardens, Stone Mages, yadachi bloodworkers and the occasional wild talent like Sal the envy of everyone — although Shilly had long ago gotten over her resentment of that fact.

When one of the bubbles in Marmion’s torc began to glow like a miniature star caught in perfectly clear amber, Chu gasped. His eyes opened. They had turned a clear, translucent blue, the same colour as the sky.

‘We’re cutting across a dense current,’ he said, leaning forward to peer out of the gondola. ‘I can see it running like a river from the southeast.’

Chu nodded. ‘That’s what’s making us rock. There should be another one ahead, tending south. It’s usually there this time of day.’

Marmion’s charmed gaze sought details where Shilly could see none. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re taking us a little high. Bring us down and you’ll catch it. There’ll be some turbulence, but it won’t last. It’s just the boundary where the two flows brush by each other.’

Chu nodded and obeyed his instructions without hesitating. The lifter’s nose dipped and a shudder ran along its length. Shilly held on tight as the turbulence worsened.

A hand tapped her shoulder. She turned around to see Tom looking at her, slightly green around the ears.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked.

He sat down next to her. ‘You haven’t called Sal since we left.’

‘I know. I figured you’d be tired from what I’d already Taken.’

‘I am, but you’re worried. You can try again if you want to.’

She was more grateful than she could say for the offer, even if she wouldn’t let herself accept it. ‘He’ll call me if he can. I’d rather you conserved your strength for when I really need it.’

Tom nodded quite seriously.

Shilly had been half-joking, but his lack of amusement gave her reason to be seriously concerned.

‘Unless you’re trying to tell me that I
should
call him now? That you’ve dreamed me doing it?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, then.’
Like always,
she thought, telling herself to emulate his insouciance.

The heavy lifter shuddered and dipped again. When she checked their progress, she saw the Aad much closer than it had been before.

Chu and Marmion were still discussing possible landing sites.

‘That rules the tower out,’ said the flyer, pointing.

Shilly craned her neck to see. Smoky brown haze hid the details, but a small group of people appeared to be waving at them from the summit of the ruined city’s watchtower.

‘Are they —?’

‘I hope not,’ said Chu. ‘Look at the base of the tower.’

She squinted to make out the details. The figures she saw were the same colour as the background stone, making their nature immediately obvious: they were man’kin. But what they were doing was less clear. They appeared to be circling the tower’s ground level, stopping occasionally to strike the stone walls as though it was a giant drum.

Not strike,
Shilly corrected herself after a longer look. They were taking stones from the wall and flinging them away.
Dismantle.

‘Can we get down there to help them?’ she asked Chu, filled with horror at the thought of what it must be like on top of the tower while monsters did their best to collapse it.

‘I don’t know.’ Power surged through the propellers with a deep thrum. The dirigible’s angle of descent steepened. Instead of travelling in a straight line, Chu guided them around a sweeping curve, with Marmion calling directions along the way. The gondola tipped and swayed like a ride in a fair. Tom’s face turned greener than ever.

Behind her, the wardens tied ropes to eyelets along the gondola’s edges. Banner walked from knot to knot, testing them for strength.

‘I don’t think it’s them,’ said Marmion as the tower came closer.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Shilly. ‘We can’t just watch them die!’

‘Too late,’ said Chu as part of the tower’s wall collapsed. The structure tipped like a drunken sailor. The people on the top ran hopelessly back and forth. One fell off.

Shilly couldn’t watch any longer. Marmion was right. None of them looked like Sal, Skender or Kail, but that was irrelevant. They were still people, and no one deserved to die in terror and agony.

When she steeled herself to turn back, the tower was gone. Only a rising cloud of stone and mortar dust remained.

‘Now we know why Sal sent for us,’ said Marmion. ‘The man’kin have gone on the rampage.’

‘Is there anything we can do to stop them?’ Shilly asked, hoping it wasn’t too late already. The thought of Sal on top of a tower like that, screaming, made her feel sick.

‘They are creatures of the Change,’ Marmion said. ‘To kill them, you have to kill the Change itself, and that is obviously impossible.’

‘Not for the Homunculus.’ A tiny candle of hope still burned in her chest for Sal; her sense of
him
remained undimmed. ‘Where it is, they’ll be safe.’

‘And unable to call us,’ said Tom, his face a mask of concern.

‘Yes, there’s that.’ Shilly craned as far as she dared over the edge of the gondola. The heavy lifter hovered directly over the city. She could see several man’kin wreaking desolation through the already ruined streets. Rubble lay everywhere she looked. It was hard in places to tell what damage was new and what the result of time and the weather.