Philip Reeve - A Darkling Plain

Everything went blurry, and Hester had to wipe her sleeve across her eye. She was glad Oenone and Pennyroyal weren’t there to see her sniveling. Only Grike was with her (she could hear the heavy, comforting tramp of his feet on the stairs behind her), and Grike had seen her weep before.

The narrow alleys behind the pans were full of loud confusion; the Storm seemed punch-drunk, and the simple business of preparing ships was leading to squabbles and rows between the remnants of different units who spoke different languages and dialects. Pushing through them, Hester felt a tightness in her chest and throat, a building panic at the thought of seeing Tom.

She stopped a passing aviator to ask the way to the cells, and was pleased at how he started bowing and saluting when she showed him Lady Naga’s oak-leaf ring. But as she climbed the stone steps to the building he indicated, she heard running footsteps behind her.

“IT IS THE ONCE-BORN PENNYROYAL,” announced Grike.

“What does he want?” grumbled Hester, though secretly she was glad of a reason to delay her reunion with Tom.

Pennyroyal came panting up the steps to her. She knew as soon as she saw him that something had gone badly wrong. “Hester! Grike!” he gasped. “Thank Poskitt! We’ve got to flee! I mean fly! That villain Naga!”

“What’s happened?” demanded Hester.

Pennyroyal waved his arms about, trying to find a gesture big enough to express the disaster. “I didn’t know what was happening; don’t know the lingo; but some of the men in there were speaking Anglish to one another, and they were saying she was a traitor—”

“Who’s a traitor?” Hester grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and shook him. “What’s happened, Pennyroyal? Where’s Oenone?”

“That’s what I’m telling you! She’s in prison! He broke her little nose, the brute! He blames her for this terror weapon. They’re saying he’s vowed to cut off her head once the cities are defeated. Oh, the poor child! Oh, merciful Clio…”

Pennyroyal was genuinely upset, and Hester felt a pang of grief and pity too as she began to understand what he was saying. She hid it in her usual way, by growing angry. “You mean it was all for nothing? All that trouble and traveling? Losing Theo? We just got her out of one prison and into another? Can’t the silly cow be left alone for a minute without getting herself locked up?” She looked at Grike, who was staring silently at the buildings above. “Reckon we can do something? Get her out?”

“No way!” said Pennyroyal instantly. “He’s locked her in some high turret. Stalkers and men with hand cannon to guard her.”

“THERE ARE MANY ONCE-BORN THERE,” agreed Grike. “I WOULD HAVE TO KILL DOZENS OF THEM. I COULD NOT DO THAT, AND DR. ZERO WOULD NOT WANT ME TO.”

“She’d want us to save our own skins!” Pennyroyal said firmly. “What if someone seeks us out? They’re running about like mad bees up there, getting ready to fly off and attack some poor city or other. And they’re hardly going to leave us on the loose, are they? If they think Oenone is a traitor, they must think we are too, and they’ll want our heads to complete the set…” He pawed at Hester’s back, sniveling with terror as she turned away from him. “Hester, your ship’s here; you’ve got to get me away…”

Hester turned and shoved him. He went backward with an indignant yelp, rolling down the steps. “We’ve traveled far enough together,” she shouted. “I told you in Airhaven, I don’t want you on my ship. You can make your own arrangements.”

Pennyroyal shouted something after her, but she did not look back. Above the noise from the docking pans she could hear other sounds: cheering and trumpet blasts coming down from somewhere above her as the remnants of the Storm celebrated Oenone’s arrest. The guard on the cell-block door heard it too, and Hester was relieved to see that he looked puzzled by it. Communications were ropy in this ramshackle harbor; no sign of telephones or speaking tubes, just small boys running to and fro with messages. It might be some minutes before word of Oenone’s fall from favor reached down here, and longer still before descriptions of her companions started to circulate.

Sure enough, the oak-leaf ring elicited more bowing and saluting from the cell-block staff. Hester was welcomed inside, while Grike explained her business in a language she didn’t know. A man ran and unlocked a heavy door, beckoning Hester through. “Wait here,” she told Grike, and stepped inside. An oil lamp had been lit, and in the slow flaring of the light she saw the prisoner sit up on his bunk and turn his face toward her.

The guard said something in his own language, but neither of them noticed. “Tom?” said Hester.

Tom rose and came toward her. He did not speak, which Hester guessed was because he was so surprised to see her; she imagined that he could not believe it was really her.

She didn’t know that Tom already knew she was in Shan Guo; indeed, from what Theo had said, Tom believed she’d been here for some days. It was a surprise to him when the cell door opened and she came in, but not a total one; surprise was not the reason why he did not speak. Hester had hurt him very badly, and when he thought of her, he still felt angry. But now that she was here, standing a few feet from him, her familiar smell blowing toward him on the draft from the open door, he found that he still loved her, too. If he could not speak, it was simply because he had too many different things to say.

“Well,” said Hester lamely. “Here we are again!”

“I left Wren in London,” he said, guessing what her first question would be.

“In London?”

“She’s with Theo; it’s all right; she’s safe, but—”

“Theo Ngoni? You mean he’s alive?”

“He found his way to London. Told us he’d seen you. How brave you’d been … Saving Lady Naga …”

The guard was staring at them. Hester swung her gun down from her shoulder and pointed it in Tom’s direction, saying to the guard in her creaky Airsperanto, “Unchain the prisoner; he’s coming with me.”

The guard shrugged; she couldn’t tell if he understood what she had said, but he seemed to get the general idea, and he quickly unlocked the shackles that chained Tom to the wall. Hester grabbed Tom by the arm and led him quickly away, nodding at the other guards. Tom wondered if he should refuse to go with her, tell her that he didn’t trust her anymore, after what she had done before. But this did not seem the moment, and besides, a part of him was glad to have her in charge again.

Outside, Grike was waiting. Tom flinched backward when the Stalker’s dead face turned to stare at him.

“It’s all right,” said Hester. “He’s a friend now.”

“Right,” said Tom, remembering what Theo had told him about the old Stalker but finding it hard to believe. “Hello, Mr. Grike. Sorry I killed you.”

Grike bowed faintly and said, “I DID NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY.”

Above their heads, with a shriek and a roar, the sky ripped open down a long seam. Light drenched them, bright as day and white as death. The ground lurched. Grike gripped his head, and his eyes flared and flickered. The shouts of the soldiers and stevedores on the docking pans changed to frightened screams, and Hester screamed too and flung her arms around Tom, tugging him close. But the sword of light that blazed above them was not aimed at Batmunkh Gompa. It stood upon the mountains farther south, blazing and shrieking, too bright to look at and too tall to comprehend. The sky filled with vapor, and blue threads of lightning crackled and flashed.

“What is it doing?” shouted Tom. “There are no cities there…”