Blightborn (4 page)

Not that any other option exists.

The elevator opens onto a long skybridge—wide enough for two people to walk side by side but no more. The skybridge extends out for a hundred feet and ends at a doorway framed by a pair of Pegasus statues, the beasts rearing back, huge front hooves high in the air as if to stomp flat some unseen predator.

She’s been here before. Harrington’s home.

He hurries onto the skybridge, pulling her along. Out here, her dizziness does not abate—in fact, it swells into total vertigo. Her life was one of tall corn and hard dirt, a life of plasto-sheen roads and wooden floors. But up here—it’s all
air
. Out there beyond this skybridge are a hundred others just like it, connecting buildings that rise up like spears, whose tips scrape the very ceiling of the sky. Massive chains, each as big as a fat-man’s thigh and some much bigger than that, drape between buildings, holding them together—and beyond them, above them, below them, the ships of the Empyrean. Skiffs and ketches, skipjacks and djong-boats, and far more opulent vessels, too: ferry-cruisers and motoryachts the likes of which the Heartland has never seen. Some of the ships fly past; others dock at buildings or at the fringes of the city.

This, the flotilla of the Ormond Stirling Saranyu. A city of disparate parts strung together and turned into a massive moving island.

A
flying
island. An airborne city.

She feels the flight of the entire flotilla beneath her. The wind in her hair. The gentle but present sway of everything. She turns, clasps the cold railing of the skybridge.
Don’t puke, don’t puke, don’t puke
.

Then she looks. A mile down she sees the bottom of the flotilla, a massive base shot through with channels and pits through which she glimpses the Heartland below—she wonders without warning what it would be like to plunge through open air toward the corn, toward home.
Didn’t Cael have a dream like that—?

She throws up.

“C’mon,” Harrington says, softening his sharp tone. He pats her back. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Gwennie sits at a mirror rimmed in crystal.

She dips her pinkie into the pink powder and rubs a little on her cheek. A carnation bloom rises to the skin, lending a small burst of color to her face. A clean face, too, no longer streaked with mud (or worse). She reaches for a small, silver tube and puzzles over it for a moment before giving it a twist—a cone of pink lipstick pushes through.

Behind her, Balastair watches. She spies him in the mirror. She tries to figure out what he’s thinking. Is that lust? Or fascination? Or is it just the look of a man perplexed by a woman? That’s a look she knows well, because she knows Cael McAvoy.

“This can’t be exciting for you,” she says, her mouth forming a grim line as she applies the lipstick. She hears her father’s voice inside her head:
Ain’t you a real painted lady
.

“You don’t know that,” he says. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“Why? Does it look bad?”

“No. Of course not. A little plain, perhaps. You’re ignoring all the prettiest colors. Peacock powder, the blue blazes, viridian, chameleon—”

“Plain is how we Heartlanders like to be. We’re not simple, but we’re straightforward. Most of us anyway. No need to be ostentatious, not even on your Obligation Day.” She thinks back to that day. Her hair in its simple braid wound in a circle. How handsome Cael looked. But Boyland, too . . .

Balastair dips into a little burlap bag and pulls out a sunflower seed. Erasmus the grackle darts in and snatches it in his beak. The bird bites the seed, cracks it, eats the inside, then flicks the shell over Harrington’s shoulder. It lands on the marble tile with a
tic
.

“You just don’t want to look like us,” he says plainly.

“We can’t afford to even if we wanted to.”

“You can today.”

“I want to be me.”

“Sure. Of course. You look nice.” He coughs. “It looks nice. The makeup, I mean.”

“Thank you.” She puckers her lips. Lips blushing pink, almost peach. “I figured you’d have some kind of . . . mechanical makeup man to handle this.”

“We do. Well, I don’t. But I can get one if you need it.”

“No. They creep me out.”

He harrumphs. “You and me both.”

She turns in her chair to face him. “You don’t like them? The auto-mates?”

“I’m fine with them as long as they remain a novelty but . . . that’s a long story and an old complaint, and it carries little value for you; plus it’s taking up our time. We are already late. And people are waiting to see you. Come on; let’s stand up. Get you in the dress.”

She stands, but as he reaches for her wrist, she pulls it away.

“One more question,” she says.

“We have to go.”

“One more question or I’ll kick and scream and fling myself over the edge before anybody can ever lay eyes on me.”

“That sounds bad for you.”

She narrows her eyes. “And probably not too great for you, either. I was left in your care, after all.”

Harrington rolls his eyes. “Fine. What?”

“The makeup. Where did it come from?”

“What? Why?”

“You’re a man. Men don’t wear makeup.”

He laughs an oh-you-silly-girl laugh. “We do here.”

“Fine, but
you
don’t. Not any other day. Not today. So where’d it come from? You married?”

He leans back against the wall. “Yes. No! I was engaged. But . . . we’re very . . . open with our relationships, and we’re on a break. . . .”

He tries to hide how sad it makes him feel, but it’s there in
the way his eyes pinch a little, the way he nervously gnaws a lip, as if maybe he’s trying to bite back words.

“Who was she?”

“What?”

“The woman. The one who left her makeup behind. Your Obligated.”

“Her name was Cleo, and we aren’t Obligated in the way that you Heartlanders—” He draws a deep breath. “We really don’t have time to talk about her.”

Erasmus blurts, “Cleo!”

Balastair pivots then and pulls a dress off a rack nestled between a series of suit coats and lab coats. He holds it out and drapes it over his forearm—silver fabric like a waterfall of pearls and diamonds pours over and almost touches the floor. It’s not just a dress. It’s a dress plus . . . feathers and fringe and other brazen accoutrements.

“It’s too much,” she says.

“It’s nothing.” He smirks, eyebrows lifting—as if he’s proud of himself, somehow. Head up and chest out, same as the little grackle on his shoulder.

“No, I mean it’s way too . . . crazy. Here.” Gwennie yanks the dress out of his hands, holds it up. “What are these on the shoulder straps?” They look like the tail feathers of some exotic mechanical bird. She rips them off, and Balastair gasps and makes a sound in the back of his throat not unlike a shuck rat squealing after being whacked with a broom handle. He makes a horrified face as Gwennie begins performing other surgical alterations: a few tassles gone, another set of silver feathers ripped from the
spot that would sit just above the base of her spine (she says, “What am I, a turkey?”).

She holds up the dress. It’s still shiny. And the back is way too skimpy (she has little interest in showing off her too-sharp shoulder blades to anybody, thank you very much). But at least she won’t look like a human-peacock hybrid. Balastair folds his fingers under his chin and
hmm
s.

She begins to undo the robe and then pauses to give him a cross look. “Well. Turn around.”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry.” He does an awkward half spin. “You don’t need to be modest here.”

“It’s good manners.” She slides the dress over her head. The material is cold against her skin, drawing goose bumps to the surface. “Why, do you want to look?”

“No! What? No.”

“So I’m not worth looking at.”

“You’re just trying to get me into trouble.”

“Turn around.”

“Are you—”

“It’s on. Turn around.”

He pivots his head before his body. His eyes narrow, then go wide. “Oh. Well.”

“This is the dress,” she says.

“It’s plain. But it works.”

“Are you saying I look nice?”

His pale cheeks go pink. “Yes. I suppose I am saying that.”

“Good. Because I’m wearing it no matter what you think. Now, let’s go to this damn party you say is so important.”

THE REMITTANCE MAN

A BURNING ITCH
lives on the flesh above Cael’s heart, below his shirt, but he can’t think about that now, no sir, because when he looked up and saw that rail-raft explode into splinters, he didn’t see Rigo at all—didn’t see him fall, didn’t see him tumble through the air like a poppet doll, didn’t see hide nor hair of him.

Cael tries to get hard earth under his feet, but clumps of dirt crumble away, leaving his heels to skid on the slope. He grabs the cornstalk with his other hand, pulling himself up and hollering himself hoarse for Rigo—but just as he starts to holler, the auto-train goes past only ten feet to his right, and the roar of the metal beast drowns his voice like a farmer killing kittens in a washtub.

Cael grits his teeth and struggles to stand on wobbly legs. The auto-train is a long, dark blur, a tar snake of great length
and terrifying speed; by the time it’s gone Cael sees Lane on the other side of him, one hand cupped around his mouth and yelling for Rigo, the rifle held gingerly in his other hand.

“I saw him hanging on,” Lane says, panicked.

“He wouldn’t let go of the damn raft!” Cael bellows for his friend again.

Together the two of them hurry onto the trestle, careful not to lose their balance, because there stands only a foot of construct separating them from a far drop into the murky river of corn slurry.

“We shouldn’t have gone so fast,” Cael says. “Godsdamnit!”

Lane shakes his head. “It’s my fault. My stupid idea. Shit!”

The two of them call together.

Rigo’s name, echoing out over the slurry canyon.

Cael’s got the eye. Everyone knows it. He can spot things nobody else can—that’s why he made a fine scavenger back in the town of Boxelder, and he and his crew would’ve been top of the pops if it wasn’t for Boyland Barnes Jr. always playing havoc with their advantage.

So when Cael looks down and scans the river and sees nothing, he gets worried. Rigo is gone. As if he never existed. As insubstantial and unreal as a soap bubble popped by a child’s finger.

But then—

A round shape bobbing in the slow-moving slurry. Heading south. The round shape turns like a log rolling over.

Rigo’s face emerges.

A pair of chubby hands waves before he’s lost again beneath the sliding muck.

Cael barks, “He’s in the river!”

“Cael!” Lane says, pointing to a narrow opening leading down to the river—a precarious path awaits: a short shelf of dry dirt supported by clusters of corn roots. Dangerous, but it’ll do.

Cael bolts off the trestle and runs into the corn. He hears Lane crashing through the stalks behind him. The corn leaves twitch and swipe at him, leaving little, stinging paper cuts across his forearms and collarbone.

That voice from the dream—

Come to me, Cael
.

It crawls into his head like a fat earthworm.

He pushes it out of his head as Lane hurries up next to him.

Cael spots Rigo again. Arms flailing. Slurry falling off his hands in gloppy blobs. The two of them charge down the narrow path—the decline is steep, and Lane’s arms pinwheel as he struggles not to pitch forward.

He’s got his eyes on Rigo, so he doesn’t see what’s at his feet. The toe of Cael’s boot clips on a bundle of corn roots popping out of the ground—“witch’s hair” is what they call such bundles, for they look like the dry and brittle hay-hair the Maize Witch is said to have on her old, haggard head—then he’s falling forward again, catching himself this time with his palms. Lane grabs him by the scruff of his neck as Cael’s legs pump beneath him to keep him moving—

And, just like that, they’re only feet from the river’s edge.

The bubbling gray-brown sludge doesn’t churn forth so much as it sluggishly crawls forward. The smell at this level is truly overpowering: a sugary fist to the nose with a sour stink-slap after.

But that’s not what matters now.

What matters is they see Rigo.

He’s not alone.

A man stands on the far side of the river, opposite them. He’s got the look of a hobo. Older. Hunched over in a pair of dirty denim overalls with nothing underneath except the worn and leathered skin of a well-traveled vagrant. The man looks up at the two of them with dark eyes under a single knitted brow, his face so scruffy with black stubble it looks like coal silt.

Cael and Lane scream at him, but the man ignores them.

The hobo reaches back and pulls up a long pole—really two poles bracketed together, by the looks of it—that dead-ends in a copper wire loop. They see Rigo, suddenly, bobbing back up to the surface.

And heading right toward the man.

The man dips the looped end of the pole into the river.

“He’s going for Rigo,” Cael says, panicked.

“Maybe he’s trying to help.”