The Blood Debt Part 14

Her crotchetiness made him wonder if he'd imagined her hesitation the previous night. *I presume you have the licence.'

*Of course.' She waved the tattered-looking envelope. *Let's get it on you and into the air.'

She had showed him how to apply the charm, letting the black skin-like sheath slide against chest and throat. It did the rest of the work, melting onto him like chocolate into hot milk. Again he experienced a strange blindness as the licence interfered with his normal sight. Then his eyes had cleared and the wind had returned.

It was strange, he thought. When taking off the licence the previous evening, it had come as a relief to see the world properly again, and overnight he had almost forgotten what it was like to see the city and its atmosphere as intertwined things, one wrapped around the other. As soon as the charm took root, however, the new sense it provided felt as natural as breathing. He was a creature of the air again.

They had strapped each other in and moved stiffly to the edge of the platform. Skender's muscles ached from the previous night's exhaustion, and the thought of more exercise wasn't a pleasant one, but his mother was out there somewhere, lost in the Divide, and he had to find her.

They launched in unison out into the crisp dawn light, accompanied by a yadachi's wailing exhortation for rain. The winds of the morning were turbulent and fresh. His cheeks instantly numbed in the cold, but the growing strength of the sunlight soon thawed them. Together, with his eyes and her skill, they negotiated the towers of the city and swooped over the Wall into the giant canyon.

It was very different during the day. Skender couldn't decide if the vastness of the Divide increased or decreased with the ability to see it, and if he was more scared or less. It was difficult to grasp the size of it. Hanging over its jumbled middle, either side was blurry and indistinct.

*Where do you want to start looking?' Chu asked him, all business.

Skender hadn't truly appreciated just how big a task he was taking on. He could discern nothing in the ravaged landscape to indicate where his mother might have gone.

*The Aad,' he said, clutching at the only clue he had. *You said there were tunnels under the other half of the city. Let's try there first. Maybe we'll see some sign of their pa.s.sage.'

*Maybe.' She tilted the wing and they tacked against a steady stream of air to approach the Ruin from the north. The sky seemed infinite above and around them. He was hanging over an enormous bowl with a V-shaped crack in it. The arms of the V diverged southwards, ahead of him, into the hazy distance.

*What are they?' he asked, pointing at a white line on the very limits of visibility.

*The Hanging Mountains,' she said. *My family came from there, generations ago. They say people there fly all the time, gliding from tree to tree on wings made of spider web. Balloon-cities hang tethered from the branches, swaying in the breeze. Fog forests hide in the mist, only fully visible at noon.'

*Sounds amazing.'

*Perhaps too amazing. None of it could be true. I've always wanted to see for myself.'

*Why haven't you?'

*Money, time, other stuff.' She was quiet for a moment. *The last couple of years have been complicated.'

He was about to ask why when she banked sharply and took them down lower. Taking the hint, he directed his eyes forward. The Aad, at a distance, had none of the clear, sharp lines of Laure. There was no wall, no concerted effort to keep the Divide at bay. Exposed on three sides, its dome-roofed buildings and truncated streets lay open to the elements, both natural and supernatural varieties. The outermost layers were uniformly rundown, with walls collapsing into rubble in numerous places and great rents in the sidewalks. At the heart of the Ruin were buildings that still retained some of their white paint and doors that at least appeared intact. A single, defiant watchtower, four-sided and broad, stood near the city's furthermost point from the Divide. Round black windows dotted its sleek planes like flies on a stick of salt.

Skender recalled everything written about old cities in the Book of Towers. There were only a few; most, like the Divide, had come into being relatively late in the history of the world. The truly ancient cities - the Nine Stars; the Haunted City; a dead city that moved of its own accord around the Broken Lands; and two others he had glimpsed during his adventures with Sal and Shilly - were dangerous, beautiful, Change-rich places. Strange creatures congregated or were confined there, and to stray into their territories was to invite disaster.

The Aad looked disreputable and had undoubtedly become home to creatures from the Divide through the years, but it didn't possess the same air those ancient cities did. His gut didn't recoil at the thought of setting foot there. It didn't resemble Laure, either. Laure had the benefit of continuous habitation and a good, solid wall.

The wind billowed above the ruined buildings, piling complicated shapes on top of an already jumbled topography. It was still too far away to make out much detail and his eye soon wandered, studying the cracked surface of the Divide's heart beneath him. Tracks of many different shapes and sizes crisscrossed in all directions. There were no obvious paths or destinations, just the marks left by unusual feet in dirt and dried mud, possibly years ago.

A gleam of reflected light caught the corner of his eye, and he turned to his right to see what had cast it. The sun was piercingly bright, baking the land under a strengthening yellow glow. Skender couldn't immediately pin down the source of the glint, but he did see something else strange.

*Are they the same people we saw last night?' he asked Chu, pointing with his free hand at three distinct clouds trailing a small train of motorised vehicles heading southwest from the ruined town.

*I don't know, but if they are they're heading in the other direction.' She shrugged. *What does it matter? They can't be your mother's expedition. You said she didn't use buggies.'

*I know, but -' He was about to confess to a nagging sense of curiosity when a second glint came from the edge of the Divide. *Something's going on down there,' he said instead. *Take us right and up. There's a thermal that'll lift us higher, so we can see better.'

*Make up your mind.' The wing dipped, then rose into the cloud of hot air billowing up from the wasteland below.

Another glint. It originated in a shallow notch on the uppermost edge of the canyon wall, a fair distance from where the three vehicles were located. Again, Skender had trouble gauging the scale of what lay below. The inside of the notch was invisible. The vehicles looked like beetles. He couldn't tell how many people occupied them and what else they carried.

*When you're quite finished gawking,' said Chu, *can you tell me how the sky looks ahead?'

*It's fine,' he said. *Keep on this heading.'

*Are you certain of that? The air is unpredictable near the edge of the Divide. You can't take it for granted.'

Underscoring her words, the wing lurched a metre downwards.

*See?' she said.

*You did that deliberately.'

*I did not!'

*Well, take us right. There's another thermal. We'll get some more alt.i.tude and then we'll be safe.'

*I shouldn't have to say this,' she said, *but the higher we go, the harder we'll hit the ground if we fall. Aren't you in the least bit afraid of heights?'

He shook his head. *Where I come from, you get over that sort of thing pretty quickly. Spiders, now, are a different story.'

*Really? Then I should tell you about the time I was cruising down to pick up a lovely piece of flotsam on the bottom of the Divide. Just as I was about to grab it, a huge spider dropped off the leading edge, right up there.' She pointed to the wing just above their heads. *It was as big as my hand, I swear, and must've been there the whole time. The speed of my descent dislodged it. I -'

*Enough!' He put a hand across her mouth, unable to repress a violent shudder. *You didn't crash and you didn't go mad with fear. That's all I need to know. Keep the details to yourself.'

She nipped a finger and he hastily withdrew his hand. *I hope you washed that this morning.'

*I did, for what it's worth. Laure water isn't much better than mud.'

*On a good day,' she agreed.

The wing reached the top of the thermal, and they were cruising again. Skender peered from a surprising height at the edge of the Divide as it crept by below, feeling better now that Chu was more her old self. The three vehicles, still moving, were now ants, and the source of the glint was little more than a dot on the cusp of the yellow dry land. As he scanned the edge of the escarpment, he spotted similar dots strung out in a long line at the edge of the Divide.

*This is getting stranger and stranger,' he said. He explained what he thought he could see, and she squinted for herself.

*Either your eyesight is a lot better than mine,' she said, *or your imagination is working overtime.'

*Perhaps we should drop lower and take a closer look,' he said.

*I don't know.'

*Why not? The air is perfectly clear.'

*You're clutching at sand,' she said.

*I know, but it's something. I haven't seen much of anything else happening around here.'

She shrugged and said, with a hint of asperity, *All right. You're the one with the licence.' Angling the wing to her left, she began a slow, lazy spiral downward.

Skender knew that he was taking a risk, but the worst he could imagine happening was wasting a little time. And it seemed reasonable to him to connect the strange behaviour below with the disappearance of his mother in the area. She herself had suggested that the artefact she sought was valuable and that competing teams might be looking for it.

Although distracted by thoughts of camel chases and rogue Surveyors, he was ever mindful to check the ways of the wind as they descended. The occasional b.u.mp and jitter didn't scare him; he was over his early nervousness, when the slightest deviation from true had sent him into a panic. The licence hadn't lied yet, and it told him that the air between the wing and the ground held no surprises.

The notches along the edge of the Divide became clearer, to the point where people within them were now visible, lying spread-eagled on the dirt.

*They're in hides,' Chu said, *waiting for something, or someone.'

Skender glanced northeast, at the approaching vehicles. *They don't seem to be looking the right way.'

*Maybe they're about to be surprised, then.'

He slitted his eyes, trying to make out what object the glints of light came from. The people in the hides were wearing shiny decorations around their necks.

It seemed likely that they were necklaces, although that struck him as odd. Change-rich collars designed to protect them from prying eyes? If so, they weren't working very well - not from above, anyway.

A more down-to-earth possibility occurred to him. The sunlight could be reflecting off crystal torcs. But that posed a whole new mystery. Why on earth would a couple of dozen Sky Wardens be hiding on the very edge of the Strand, as far away from the sea as they were allowed to go?

*There's someone else,' said Chu, pointing inland.

He didn't take her seriously until he saw the morning shadow stretched long across the flat land. It was cast by a single person, possibly a man, walking with steady paces over the sand, holding something in his arms.

*Who the G.o.ddess is that?'

*Your guess is as good as mine.'

*What's he doing out here? What's he carrying?'

*This is weird,' said Chu. *I don't like it. I think we should get out of here.'

Skender shook his head. *Just a little longer.' He projected the paths of the approaching vehicles and the walking man. They intersected not far from the line of hidden Sky Wardens. *I want to see what happens.'

*Why? It has nothing to do with us, and it could be dangerous.'

*How? We're perfectly safe up here.'

*My bones disagree.'

*Your bones don't have a licence. I do, and I'm telling you that the winds are clear. It's smooth sailing all around here.'

*Maybe that's what I don't like. How can the air be so calm? We're over open land and the sun is up. It should be like the inside of a kettle!'

*Then we got lucky. Chu, I don't know what's going on, but I think we need to find out. It probably has nothing to do with my mother, but that doesn't mean it isn't important.'

*All I care about is my own skin.'

*Fine,' he snapped, *so remember that your skin wants to fly, and helping me will convince the Magister to help you. Do we still have a deal or don't we?'

She didn't respond immediately. They continued in slow wide circles over the walking man and his burden, and over the people in the hides, descending further with every complete circuit. The figure striding with the regularity of clockwork across the parched land was as black as anyone Skender had ever seen. The object in his arms could have been a sack, or a person. It was impossible to tell.

*Okay,' said Chu, taking a deep breath. *But if anything goes wrong, I'm going to -'

That was as far as she got before the wind emptied out of the wing and they were suddenly falling.

Skender's stomach leapt to his throat. He let go of Chu and clutched at the straps for support. They were spinning, tumbling.

*What's happening?'

*I don't know!' she yelled back. *You said the air was clear!'

*It is!' He tried to orient himself against the swinging horizon. He could see no chaotic flows gripping the wing, no miniature storms or hurricanes invisible to the naked eye. The air was as clear as it ever was.

And that, he suddenly realised, was the problem. It wasn't just the air around him he couldn't see. He couldn't see the air anywhere.

*The charms!' he cried. *Something's killed the charms!'

She looked around her, at the wing and at him. His tattoos had faded, and so had the black marks normally adorning the wing. Her knuckles whitened where they gripped the control straps.

*We're falling free!' He heard panic in her voice, barely hidden behind an iron determination to remain in control. *But it's okay! I trained for this. There are ways to ditch without getting hurt.'

*With a pa.s.senger?'

She didn't waste energy answering the question. Wind whipped around them, blinding him. No longer his ally, it was both tenuous and as treacherous as a gale. Chu's arms wrenched at the wing, brought their graceless descent under a measure of control. He tried to help her, but feared that he was only making things worse.

They were falling like stones. It struck him abruptly that they could both die. The higher we go, the harder we'll hit the ground. In that instant, every other concern became insignificant: his mother, the ident.i.ties of the strangers below, what Chu's plans were, and what she really thought of him...

*Hold on,' she said. Her hands yanked at the wing's slender control surfaces. *This could be rough.'

The ground ballooned in front of them. Chu threw herself backwards, trying to bring the nose up. The wing resisted. Skender could see them smacking hard against the ground if he didn't do something fast, so he wrapped both arms around her and wrenched their centre of gravity higher. The nose jerked and skewed to the right.

*Not the wing!' she cried, kicking outwards. *Don't damage the wing!'

The blur of the ground resolved into dirt and stones, rocks and stumps of trees, and then Chu's legs were running, trying valiantly to match their velocity. Skender covered his face with his hands, unable to do anything more than ride it out, feeling the heat of the sun reflected off the ground at him and the sudden lurch of impact, and hearing the awful sc.r.a.ping of leather against dirt, as a landing even worse than the one the previous night unfolded beneath him.

*Sal, wait!'

Shilly was three metres behind him and falling back, unable to match his pace. His reasons for bursting from the hide and running out into the open were a complete mystery. He was blowing their cover. Marmion was going to skin them alive!

That this was her first concern appalled her. She cursed herself as she tried her best to keep up with him. Behind her in the hide she had left Tom with the gla.s.s globe and the decision whether to use it or not. She had kept one of the flares, just in case. Not knowing what Sal had seen or sensed in the heat-dancing landscape around her made it difficult for her to know what to do.

Sal was running as though all the creatures of the Divide were after him. But he wasn't looking behind him. He was looking ahead and up.

That was when she saw it: a shape that could have been an enormous golden swallow dropping out of the sky. It angled in from above her and to her right. That it was the same thing she had seen the previous night, blocking the moon, she had no doubt. It was a flying wing of some sort, carrying two people below it. But what was it doing here and now, she asked herself, and why was it plunging at such a steep angle into the ground? If it hit, as it was bound to at any moment, its pa.s.sengers were certain to be killed.

It levelled out at the last moment, turning a fatal drop into something more controlled. Lurching from left to right, it skidded across the dirt, raising a cloud of fine, dry dust into which Sal unhesitatingly ran.