Lotus Blue Page 2

  People stopped their chitchat, craned their necks to see. Everybody, Star noticed curiously, except for Golden Earring and his friends. All three kept their backs to the fortress city. Perhaps they had not heard the call? Perhaps they did not realise what they were missing?

  Lucius waved and brought his camel closer. “Coming up on Axa,” he shouted again for the benefit of those who’d never passed this way. Not that there was much to see. A stark black cylinder surrounded by sun-baked flats. Star stared hard at the shimmering thing. So little was known about the fortress cities. The flats surrounding Axa were booby-trapped with mines. That much she knew was true—that’s how Kendrik lost his arm.

  Fortress city Cassia was different though. No mines. No tricks or traps. You could walk right up to it and touch its glassy casing—for all the good it would do. Blasts of steam bled from high vents on either side.

  Lucent, unlike Cassia or Axa, had been built inside a hollowed out mountain. Too high to reach by Van. Nisn was closer but not worth the risk. Templar soldiers were rumoured to patrol its rugged boundaries.

  “You’d think you’d never seen that place before.” Old Lucius pulled his camel alongside, close enough for talking at a shout. “You always stare when we pass the Axa flats,” he added. “Regular as sun up.”

  “Everybody stares,” Star replied.

  “Not them,” said Lucius, pointing with his chin to the backs of the three princes.

  She looked, then smiled. So it wasn’t just her. Those princes were behaving strangely.

  “Tourists,” said Lucius. “They won’t last long out on the Black if they’re figuring on bagging themselves a tanker.”

  Star nodded, returning her attention to the dark, squat shape on the horizon.

  “I want to know about the people shut inside,” she said.

  Lucius smiled again, wider this time, showing off his set of straight white teeth. “Whoever—or whatever’s inside that place is best left alone, ask me. Nothing good’ll ever come from there.”

  “But what if they’re just like us?”

  He snorted, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Any people left inside ain’t anything like us. Not by half. Too many years of darkness underground.”

  His camel snorted too, in taciturn agreement. The scarred old tankerjack and his mount shared more than a few common features. Lucius and Star had had this conversation a dozen times before. He was all for leaving things the way they were, which, he assured her, was the wisest way to live. That attitude had seen him well through sixty summers. An impressive feat in itself for a former tankerjack.

  The Van trundled onwards; its rooftop passengers continuing to gawk at mysterious, mythological Axa.

  Suddenly, movement caught Star’s eye. The three princes stood, careful to maintain their balance, brushed the creases from their clothes and began to pick their way along the juddering wagon top. The other direction, away from Star and Lucius, away from Axa, heading towards the wagon’s tail.

  She frowned. Where did they think they were going? She watched and waited, expecting them to stop and settle. To turn around and squint at Axa like everybody else: wannabes, locals, Van hands, and tourists alike.

  But the princes did not stop. They jumped across from seven to eight, pushed through the grumbling, tight-packed travellers, then continued on from eight to nine, the blond one almost tripping over his own feet.

  Star looked to Lucius but he’d dropped the camel back into flank protection position, where he was supposed to be. Without further hesitation, she rose and followed the princes herself, hopping sure-footed and nimble as a goat, as adept atop the lurching, shuddering Van as on hard ground.

  The further along towards the tail, the greater the dust, the cheaper the passage, and the rougher the other travellers. Seven was one of the safest wagons, protected by riders on both sides, up and down. The princes must have paid handsomely for the privilege of riding atop its roof. There was nothing safe about the tail-end wagons. They might easily get robbed for their fancy clothes, slashed and tipped over the side during the quiet hours when no danger threatened and the riders were distracted. No one further up would care or notice, especially not with a fortress city in plain sight.

  Axa. Some crazy folks were even praying to it, cycling through their rosaries and worry beads, pressing amulets against their sun-chapped lips.

  Star paused on twelve, nodding back at those who acknowledged her. Some names she knew, others were only faces she recognised—but they all knew her. Nene’s little sister, safe under the protection of Benhadeer. Even hardened killers—deep desert men and women with stained souls seeped in blood—cheerfully made room for Nene by the evening fire. Anyone who laid hands upon Nene’s sister would not live long enough to talk about it.

  She crouched, more certain than ever that the princes were planning to jump the tail. Out here in the shadow of Axa—the middle of nowhere. They must be crazy. No other explanation made sense. She’d have to tell Lucius. He’d have something to say about it. Perhaps the heat and thirst had got to them.

  Golden Earring balanced near the edge, shoved an old woman swathed in tattered black out of his way. She spat something back at him but he didn’t react. He reached for the top of the spindly ladder embedded in the side, threw his head back to toss curls out of his eyes. Stared right at Star—or at least that’s what she thought. Stared at her, right through her, then above her.

  A cry sounded over her shoulder, then another and another. Star stood up and turned around. Everyone was looking now, not at Axa but at the pale blue sky—and the object searing through it. She was still staring at it when one of the tankerjacks began to shout.

  “By Oshana’s eye!” He raised his lance and pointed upwards. By then, the length and breadth of the Van had seen it too. Something bright streaking through the blue. A flaming object hurtling from the heavens.

  = Two =

  Watchtower duty was all right by Leni. Eight hours on and eight hours off. High up was good. The higher the better—as far from the stink of algae vats as it was possible to get.

  She liked looking out through the tinted blast-proof plexiglass that filtered out the harmful solar rays. Out across the still, unchanging desert flats that stretched in all directions. Most of all, she loved the violent, ragged purple storms. They all did, all the Tower crews. Even Dorse would look up from his console when the Heartland heaved and spat a blaster out. He said there was a grace and elegance to the storms in motion. Like animals, he said—but then, those who’d dedicated service to the Saints said a lot of peculiar things.

  Leni had signed up for Watchtower duty to get a bit of distance from those Saints, and their tedious histories. Everyone was forced to memorise the names of battles: dates and times, generals, soldiers, heroes of the bygone revolutions. All a pointless waste of time. There were no enemies strong enough to challenge Nisn. The other fortress cities were all lame and weak and helpless. Not even Axa was fit to lead a charge, despite the occasional circulating rumours.

  History was like a great weight pressing down on all their heads. Citizens of Nisn were required to feel remorse for a past they’d played no part in engineering. A past that seemed too dull for the ruin that had sprung forth from its fires.

  Curious details abounded, of course. Whispers that secret histories, mysteries, and the like were cosseted in Archive, but Leni was never smart enough to qualify. Histories were a privilege for the few: the men and women who guarded them, and the ones selected to infiltrate the settlements.

  Nisn spies didn’t last long in the field. Native enclaves, wild and starving animals, poisoned air. Barbarian warlords murdering one another defending pitiful patches of barren soil. Things that didn’t bear thinking about crawling around in the old war zones. Biomecha. Flesh-machines that should have gritted up and broken down long
ago, but hadn’t.

  Not that all the danger was on the outside. Templar soldiers were supposed to be treated with respect. Supposed to be, but Leni could barely stand to look at them. They weren’t human, no matter what the scriptures had to say. Old in a way mere ageing didn’t afflict. Alive for centuries, some of them, with artificial hearts and lungs and limbs. Blood crawling with artificial organisms. Flesh and metal fused down to the bone.

  “Track that,” said Dorse suddenly. “Looks like a shooter!”

  Absorbed by her own thoughts, she almost missed it. Things got shot down often enough. Surprising how many old war sats were still in orbit, self-repairing, fully functional—or partly. Functional enough to cause big trouble on the ground.

  “Nuh uh,” she replied, squinting to check the pale grey screen by her right hand. “Too much titanium alloy. It’s a Warbird 47.”

  Dorse shook his head. “Too small for that. More like a Firefly or an Angel.”

  They both stared as the falling thing—whatever it was—sliced sharply through the bland and empty sky.

  Dorse leaned in a little closer, checked his screen, wiped it, checked again. Glanced across at Leni. “The trajectory’s all wrong. Woah, did you see that!”

  Leni nearly jumped out of her skin when the falling object slowed, then swerved abruptly. She looked at Dorse. “We’d better call it in.”

  Dorse didn’t answer, just stood and stared as if he’d been waiting all his life for just this moment. Hesitation born of fear and piety. His family was Temple, through and through. She’d often wondered why he even took the draft. He’d have been happier swinging incense in the cavern hollows and machine blasted grottos down below. Watching over those unspeakable Templars. Preparing them for moments such as this.

  “I’m calling it in,” she said, her voice sounding thin and insubstantial. She punched the access code into the console. Nothing happened. She tried again, then balled a fist and thumped it on the scratched metal surface. “System’s down,” she told him. “Power rationing—today of all the days.”

  Dorse didn’t answer. She glanced across the consoles, realised he was praying, touching the square medallion he always wore around his neck, the words tumbling out too soft and fast for her to catch them.

  Leni tried the access code again, then hurried for the stairwell, leaving her offsider deep in prayer, staring blankly at the thin diagonal drawn across the sky. A falling Angel, Firefly or Temple-knows-what. She outranked him. The honour should be hers.

  She took the stairs because the lifts could not be trusted. Not even on days when everything else was running smooth. What if there was a blackout proper? What if Dorse snapped back into focus, came to his senses and snatched the glory from her hands? She hurried, jumping two steps at a time until she reached Level 80. Briskly walking corridors lit with a soft glow—yet another advantage of being up so high. Some trick with mirrors, so they said, but it almost seemed like light seeped through the walls.

  Leni was not supposed to enter Operations. Leni was supposed to make use of the comms. Truth was, in five years on the job, she’d never had reason to report anything exciting. Just storms and dust and flocks of carrion birds. Occasional barbarians on camelback or bio-modded lizard. Mismatched wagon trains meandering like snakes across the flats.

  Operations. The thick, gun metal door ground open on her approach. Inside was as dimly lit as she expected, the air even staler than in the corridors. Banks of machines stacked one atop another. Pale faces illuminated by flickering screens.

  Once inside, she saluted and stood to attention. Disappointed, because the three tiers of them sat, fortified and calm, as if something they’d been waiting for forever had finally come to pass. They already knew. Damn it—Dorse must have thumped some juice back into the console.

  “Thank you, Lance Watchman Leni 7114H. The situation is in hand.”

  Which means go away, the response is above your designation, as is pretty much everything that takes place in watchtower’s upper levels. Leni stood still, letting the words wash over her.

  “Lectronics are on the fritz, Sir!” she said, saluting. Well, of course they were—why else would she be standing in Operations?

  Eight higher-ups were seated behind tiers of consoles, and there was not one face she recognised. “That will be all, Lance Watchman. You are dismissed.”

  But it was too late. She’d already seen it, right in front of her on the single functioning screen flickering amongst the enormous bank of dead grey glass, shimmering like a jewel. These monitors hadn’t functioned in at least four generations, she’d been told, they were only retained for aesthetic purposes, to remind them all of histories that had been. But one of the screens was suddenly working.

  And it showed one of them. Walking stiffly across the sand outside.

  “That’s a Templar,” she said out loud, not intending to give voice to thought, but blurting it out anyway in disbelief. “And it’s moving!”

  Templars stood as statues in the Temple down below. Grateful citizens laid offerings at their feet. Were it not for these ancient supersoldiers, the inhabitants of Nisn would have perished in the wars. Nobody had seen one walking since before her great grandmother’s time.

  There was no immediate reply, and as the silence dragged, Leni became aware of the low level tickings, taps, and thunks emanating from the equipment. Whirrs and clunks. Perhaps more functional than she’d been led to believe.

  “Yes, Lance Watchman, that is correct. A Templar,” said the old man who looked more like a priest than a five-star G, despite the uniform. Something about his posture in the chair, the way he held his hands clasped on the desk.

  “Nice work, Lance Watchman. You may return to your post,” said the Staff Sergeant.

  Leni saluted again, then reluctantly turned and left Command HQ. So that was that. She had been too slow and by now Dorse would be tracking the Templar on his own screens.

  But when she returned to her post, Dorse was still staring out across the sands at a sky stained with wisps of fallen Angel, at dirty sky burns the wind hadn’t blow away. Rubbing the metallic square around his neck between his thumb and forefinger.

  She stared at him accusingly. “You called it in already.”

  “Temple bless the lot of us,” he said.

  = Three =

  The Van’s great wheels began to screech and slow, drowning out all speculation. A smack and clatter of flipping hatches as those travelling below clambered up top to investigate. Spyglasses aimed at the flaming rock searing across the sky. No, not a rock, but a shiny silver object. Still others shimmied up the sides to join the gawking onlookers. Within moments, every inch of available space was precariously crammed.

  Golden Earring no longer clung to the top of the spindly ladder. He’d climbed back up to stand beside his friends, all three attempting to maintain dignified balance against wagon thirteen’s notoriously shocking suspension. He pulled his own spyglass and trained it on the object bleeding wispy streaks across the sky. Snapped his fingers. His blond companion withdrew something from within his galabeya’s folds, sunlight glinted off the object’s casing. A knife? No, a relic, maybe. Something he was going to pains to shield from prying eyes. He rubbed his thumb across its metallic surface, then with a swift motion, aimed it at the flaming thing, paused, then slipped it back into his pocket. Star only caught a fleeting glimpse—too many bobbing heads were in the way. When his eyes met hers he didn’t flinch or blink. He stared at her until she looked away. Back up at the flaming thing, whatever it was. Nene would know about it. She’d know what to do.

  Foreign princes could not be trusted, but the flaming thing was too important—and too frightening. Reluctantly, Star turned her back on them and pushed through the thronging, wailing, speculating crowd, not watching anything but the object cutting through blue s
ky like butter.

  The dusty air was hot and thick with chatter, attempts to divine meanings from the object’s smoky trails. The length of it, its consistency and direction. Shouting to have their voices heard above the chanting and singing from competing faiths, each attempting to drown the others out. Tension was welling. Where was Benhadeer? The big man had yet to show his face. He should have been on camelback, riding up and down the line barking at everyone to keep calm and shut their mouths. Offering reassurance that the world was still the way it was supposed to be.

  She kept on pushing, jumping from wagon to wagon, landing roughly on number seven, jostling a dark-skinned man with a beard of beaded plaits. Varisan the Shaman, Yeshie’s greatest rival.

  “A shooter in daylight!” he exclaimed, clutching Star’s shoulders. “A big one—never seen anything like it.”

  The skinny, dark-haired woman clinging to his arm stared hard, then swallowed, groping for one of the many amulets strung around her own neck and pressing it between thumb and forefinger. “Not a shooter,” she warbled. “That’s an Angel.”

  “A what?”

  No need to repeat it. The man had heard. So had everybody near, and agitated whispers spread like wildfire up and down the wagon tops. Angels were known to rule high above this particular stretch of Road. Tiny moving specks of light swimming amongst the stars and constellations. Moving their own way, doing their own thing. Different from shooters—so quick, they were too easy to blink and miss.

  But before anyone had time to blink, something happened to shush the lot of them. The shooter, Angel, flaming rock or whatever it was slowed down, hovered uncertainly in mid-air, then changed its course. A cluster of dancers began to wail in their high-pitched sing-song voices. Sounds soon drowned beneath a cascade of anxious, yelping dogs. Camels brayed, barked, and spat—they didn’t like it any more than the people did.

  Star jumped and hopped and pushed and shoved until at last she found her way to Nene. “Old woman back there said it’s an Angel—what did it just do?” she blurted, out of breath, trying to keep her voice low and the anxiety out of it—although it was far too late for that.