Philip Reeve: A Darkling Plain

“You were on Cloud 9!” he blurted out, startling Khora and the servant girls, who had been expecting some more formal greeting. “The night the Storm camel You’re Dr. Zero! You were with Naga and—”

“And I am still with Naga,” the woman replied with a faint, puzzled smile. She was young, and quite pretty in a boyish way. Her hair, which had been short and green when Theo first met her, was longer now, and black. The neck of her linen tunic was open, and in the hollow of her throat hung a cheap tin cross that she must have bought from one of the stalls outside the cathedral. She reached up to touch it as she said, “So you were with us aboard Cloud 9 last year, Mr. Ngoni? I’m afraid I don’t remember …”

Theo nodded eagerly. “I was with Wren. You took us away from the Stalker Fang and asked Wren about the Tin Book…” His voice trailed off. He had just remembered the uniform she had been wearing that night. “She used to be some sort of surgeon,” his father had said, but that had only been half true; she had been a surgeon-mechanic, a builder of Stalkers for the Green Storm’s dreaded Resurrection Corps.

“That was you?” she asked, still smiling. “I’m so sorry. So much happened that night, and so much has happened since… How is your wound? Healing?”

“It is better,” said Theo bravely.

Khora laughed, and said, “The young heal quickly! I was wounded myself once, at Batmunkh Gompa, back in the year ’07. A damned Londoner stuck his sword through my lung. It still hurts me sometimes.”

“Theo, my boy,” his father said, “why don’t you show Lady Naga the gardens?”

Awkwardly, Theo indicated the open door, and Lady Naga followed him outside with her girls trailing at a respectful distance. Glancing behind him, he saw Khora deep in conversation with his parents, and his sisters watching and giggling. They were probably wondering which of the ambassador’s servants he would fall in love with, Theo realized. Both girls were very beautiful. One was Han or Shan Guonese; the other must have come from somewhere in the south of India; her skin was as dark as Theo’s, and her eyes, which met his as he stared at her, were the blackest he had ever seen.

He looked away quickly, and tried to cover his confusion by pointing out the path that led to his favorite part of the garden, the terrace overlooking the gorge. The shadowed walk was overhung by trees heavy with orange flowers; Lady Naga stooped to pick up one that had fallen on the path, and turned it in her hands as they walked on. Watching her, Theo noticed that her small fingers were dappled with patches of bleached skin and tea-colored stains. “Chemicals,” she explained, seeing that he had noticed. “I worked for a long time with the Resurrection Corps. The chemicals we used …”

Theo wondered how many dead soldiers she had Stalkerized, and how six short months could have turned a shy little officer from the Resurrection Corps into the wife of the leader of the Storm. As if she guessed his thoughts, Lady Naga looked up at him and said, “It was I who killed the Stalker Fang that night. I rebuilt another old Stalker, Mr. Grike, and set him to attack her. General Naga was impressed. He seemed to think I’d been very brave. And I suppose he felt I needed protection, for there are a lot of people in the Storm who worshiped her, and would be glad to see me dead. And—well, you know how sentimental soldiers can be. At any rate, he took good care of me on the voyage home to Tienjing, and when we had got there, and he was secure in the leadership, he asked me to marry him.”

Theo nodded. It was embarrassing, to be talking about such private things with her. He had seen Naga, a fierce warrior who clanked around inside a motorized metal exoskeleton to compensate for his lost right arm and crippled legs. He could not imagine that Dr. Zero had been in love with him. It must have been fear, or lust for power, that had made her say yes.

“The general must miss you,” was all he could think of to say.

“I think he does,” said Lady Naga. “But he is a good man, and he really wants peace. He wants to see friendship restored between Zagwa and the Storm. I persuaded him that I should be the one to talk to your leaders. He thought I would be safer here. There are still elements of the Storm who hate Naga for trying to end their war, and hate me for destroying their old leader and letting Naga take over power. He thought that by flying halfway around the world, I might escape them for a while. It seems he was wrong about that.”

Theo wondered what she meant. But at that moment they reached the edge of the trees; the sunlit terrace opened before them, and for a few minutes Lady Naga could say nothing but “Oh!” and “Ah!” and “What a magnificent view!”

It was magnificent. Even Theo, who had known it all his life, felt awestruck sometimes when he stood on this terrace and looked over the balustrade. The steep sides of Zagwa gorge dropped sheer to the aquamarine curve of the river far below, and the mountains rose above, thick green cloud forest giving way to snow, soaring up and up toward the dazzling sky where greater mountains hung: giant storm clouds, white and ice blue in the sunlight. A few wind riders were hanging on the thermals overhead, reminding Theo of his own flight, and the kite he’d lost. It occurred to him that Lady Naga had not yet thanked him for saving her from the townie air strike. He had thought that was what she had come here for.

“Whatever made you want to leave all this and join the Green Storm?” she asked.

Theo shrugged awkwardly, unhappy at being reminded of his time as a flying bomb. “It’s all under threat,” he said. “The Flying Corps do their best to defend our borders, but every year more and more of our farmlands and forests are eaten. The cities of the desert move south, and bring the desert with them. I had listened so long to my father and my friends talking about it, and I just wanted to be doing something. I thought the Green Storm had the answer. I was younger then. You think things are simple when you’re young.”

Lady Naga smiled quietly. “How old are you, Theo?”

“Now? I’m nearly seventeen. Oh, be careful!” he cried, for the dark servant girl, apparently quite fearless and as taken as her mistress with the view, had leaned far out over the crumbly balustrade to look down. “Careful!” Theo shouted. “It’s very old! It may give way!”

The girl paid him no attention at all, but the other servant said softly, “Rohini,” and reached out to gently pull her back. Her black eyes gazed at Theo, startled and confused.

“Rohini cannot hear you,” explained Lady Naga. “She is a deaf-mute, the poor thing. She came to me as a slave; a wedding gift from Naga’s oldest friend, General Dzhu. Of course, I do not hold with slavery, so she has her freedom now, but she has chosen to stay with me. She is a good girl.”

The girl Rohini bowed to Theo, thanking him for saving her, or apologizing for putting herself in danger. “It’s all Right,” he said, “it doesn’t matter …” and then remembered that she couldn’t hear and tried to mime it, which made both girls laugh. They were as bad as his sisters, Theo thought, but he didn’t really mind.

Just then, down a stairway from the upper level of the gardens, came Air Marshal Khora, with Theo’s parents. All three looked very solemn. Khora shot Lady Naga a look that seemed to mean something, though Theo could not guess what. The two servant girls stopped laughing at Theo and took themselves quickly away to the other end of the terrace. Some of the house servants appeared with folding tables, chairs, iced red tea, and honey biscuits. Mrs. Ngoni fussed about arranging seats and sending up to the house for a parasol, for she imagined that an ivory-colored person like Lady Naga could very easily catch sunstroke, and did not want it happening in her garden.