Shine Light (21 page)

Seated on worn leather stools around a table littered with brass smoking pipes and empty food plates, Naif and Rollo told Balta all they knew of Ixion, Grave and the Riper’s ship. They told him of their plan, and Kero’s sacrifice.

‘He is the best leader for the Wings but when Krista-belle died he lost heart for it . . .’ Balta’s hard, arrogant expression became angry. ‘I respected him.’

‘Are you with us on this?’ asked Naif softly.

He picked up the pipe and inhaled deeply. When he let out his breath, puffs of it drifted towards Naif. The scent was sweet and heady.

‘You say the uthers can reverse the badges?’

She nodded.

He took another drag on the pipe, slower and deeper this time. His eyes glazed a little and his breathing became more even. ‘We’re with you.’

Neither Rollo nor Naif spoke about Goa until they were back at the Abraxas station. The platform overflowed with young ones carrying unlit torches, waiting for the kar.

‘Where are you all going?’ asked Rollo.

‘Los Fien,’ replied the boy nearest him. ‘Some big thing’s happening there. The uthers have vanished too. There’s no food. You should come. Bring your own light.’

Rollo grinned. ‘We’ll be there.’

‘It’s starting at Early-Eve but we’re going early so we can be at the front.’

‘Smart,’ said Rollo, glancing at Naif.

They caught the kar with them, squeezed in among the jostling bodies.

‘A girl called Kara runs the Wings now. She prefers Agios,’ Rollo whispered in Naif’s ear.

‘What’s she like?’ she asked him.

He pulled a face. ‘You’ll see.’

They left the kar two stops later at the Agios station. Unlike the Abraxas stop, the platform was quiet. As they hurried down the stairs towards the wrought iron door, Naif felt the brush of fingers at her neck. Her skin pimpled and she whipped around, hands raised.

‘What?’ cried Rollo.

But there was nothing behind her.

‘I . . . thought I . . .’

He leaned close to her. ‘Are you all right?’

Naif ran a nervous tongue over her upper lip. Her palms felt slippery as she clasped them together. ‘They know what we’re planning. They’re following us. Between them and Cal, the Ripers will soon know.’

Rollo grabbed her arm and began to drag her inside. ‘Let’s hurry.’

She resisted him, throwing her body sideways against him so they both careened into the door.

‘What the . . .?’ he gasped.

Naif breathed heavily in his face. ‘There’s a Riper inside.’

After a moment, they both peered around the door. A tall, pale, emaciated creature leaned against a column, watching the young ones.

Naif recognised him from the chamber below Syn. He was one of Varonessa’s; she’d seen him at her side during the Ripers’ meeting.

‘Sorry,’ whispered Rollo. ‘I nearly –’

She shook her head. ‘We’ll wait until he goes.’

The pair backed to the edge of the stairs and crouched in the shadows.

At every moment, Naif feared a tentacle would lash out from the darkness and take them. She felt the Night Creatures around her stirring.

Not yet
, she pleaded with fate.
Not yet.

Rollo steadied her rising terror with a warm hand on hers. He was scared too, but stubbornness and pride kept him from showing it.

Boots sounded lightly on the stairs. A sliver of wind cooled the roots of her hair and she saw the Riper glide up towards the station and disappear.

They waited a while longer, to be sure.

A kar rattled in from the other direction and the influx of young ones tumbling down the steps into Agios gave them courage to leave their hiding place.

Naif and Kero followed them inside, where the glow of the gold inlaid marble floors of the cruciform and the ornate wall friezes were like a stab in her chest. Before she’d left Ixion, she’d looked down on Agios’s beauty from the gallery, standing beside Lenoir, feeling the power of his mind in hers.

And then later, in the crucible, she had spoken to Markes alone. He’d been vague and inconsiderate, and not the boy she’d thought him to be. How confused her emotions had been then. And still were.

Those memories were as fresh as a bleeding wound.

‘She’ll be over at the pulpit,’ said Rollo. ‘She likes the view from there.’

They threaded across the cruciform to the dais where the pulpit stood. Most of the Wings wore bandanas, either black or white, and were sprawled on the floor in groups, talking.

A girl in tight pants, with hair spilling out from beneath her white bandana, sat on the pulpit alone. Naif recognised two of Kero’s guards close by.

‘Rollo,’ said the girl as they approached. ‘What’re you doing here? Thought you liked the roaches at Goa.’

Rollo vaulted onto the dais, causing the guards to jump to their feet.

‘Whoa!’ said Kara. ‘Back off.’

‘Don’t be paranoid,’ snapped Rollo. ‘This is important.’

She squinted at him, assessing his mood, then nodded to her guards to relax. They kept their distance but stayed on their feet.

‘Who’ve you brought with you?’ she asked, eyeing Naif.

‘Clash’s sister.’

Naif saw Kara’s shoulders tense. ‘The one who attacked Brand?’

‘Yes,’ said Naif, stepping forward. ‘That’s me.’ She untied Kero’s bandana.

Kara held out her hand and Naif passed it over.

Just as Balta had, she fingered the lettering. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s at sea, and he needs your help.’

Kara beckoned her closer. ‘Explain.’

Naif did, as quickly and clearly as she could. About the badges expiring, about the League and what the Ripers were doing with the young ones. And then the ship and Kero’s decision.

Kara listened intently. ‘You’re asking us to follow you?’

Naif hesitated, sensing the wrong answer would lose Kara’s support. They needed the Wings. ‘No. I’m asking you to follow Kero one last time. He’s risked everything. And he’s alone.’

Kara stroked his bandana absently, her eyes unfocused.

‘You know I wanted to be with him but he chose Krista-belle. When she died I felt such grief for him.’ Her eyes lost their glaze and she looked at Naif. ‘That surprised me. Maybe it’s true that you’ll do anything for the people you care about. Forgive them, too.’

Naif thought of her brother, Clash. Of Markes and Lenoir. ‘The League have stockpiled weapons in their camp. You should arm yourselves.’

Kara nodded.

‘We’ve spoken to the Freeks as well,’ said Naif. ‘And many of the young ones along the way. We’ve told them to come to Los Fien by next Early-Eve.’

The White Wings leader got to her feet. ‘Then you’d best hurry,’ she said. ‘And so had we.’

Kara’s guards escorted them back to the station platform amid curious stares, with an understanding that she would speak with the young ones in Agios and then collect the League’s weapons and meet them at Los Fien.

As they boarded the kar travelling upwards, Naif was overwhelmed by hunger and tiredness. It seemed like days since she’d slept for those few precious hours in Lenoir’s cave and taken sustenance from his sleeping sac. There was no food to be had here now, though. Not until this thing had been seen to its end.

Just for a moment she thought about asking one of the young ones for a bead. But she stifled the urge, shuddering at the memory of the Rapture pod she had swallowed whole in Vank.

‘Do you think the uthers will come?’ she asked Rollo.

He shrugged. ‘Would you trust Ufur?’

Naif sighed and stared out the window at the delicate rainbow of Ixion lights sprinkling a kaleidoscope of colour across the mountainside. How had the uthers taken Uma’s death? What would the strange creatures do now?

Rollo leaned forward, peering out of the same window.

‘Not long ’til Early-Eve,’ he said.

Naif saw the tell-tale lightening that marked the passage of time on Ixion. A shift from black to grey that lasted an hour or so.

In her mind, Naif repeated what she would say to those who came. How she would convince them to come along the dark paths to Danskoi. Guilt warred with pragmatism, sense with inevitability. A march on Danskoi was dangerous but doing nothing was more so. Besides, she told herself, the wheel was in motion now. Without the uthers, the young ones would starve. There was only one way forward.

She rested her head against the cool metal trim of the window as the kar wended its way up past the last platforms. Each time a new crowd of young ones entered, Rollo took the centre of the carriage and spoke to them.

Naif watched the frightened whisperings of some and the careless dismissals of others. The former stayed in their seats but others left, still intent on the club they’d planned to go to, or called by the burning of
petite nuit
in their palm.

All the while, Naif prayed that Ruzalia had received their message; that the pirate would do what they needed her to do.

‘Here it is,’ said Rollo.

A slow screech signalled their braking at the Los Fien platform. The kar trembled on its wire as though as terrified as she was, before disgorging them all to the highest of the churches permitted to the young ones.

They stepped out into the night to be greeted by a crowd already spilling from the church’s doors. Los Fien was an oak construction, modest by the standards of Agios and Vank. Plain as well.

Rollo forced a path for them inside, where they stopped to look for a vantage point.

‘In the choir stand,’ said Naif, pointing to her right.

He nodded and took her hand so they wouldn’t become separated. Already the cruciform radiated heat and noise at an uncomfortable level. By the time they reached the choir-stand both of them were drenched with sweat.

‘Don’t do it yet. More will come,’ said Rollo.

Naif shook her head. ‘They must hear it now, or they’ll leave.’

‘But the Freeks and the Wings will take time to get here.’

‘They know where we’re going. They’ll come.’

His expression showed he disagreed but when she held out her hand for him to hoist her, he helped her. Rollo’s boost pushed her over the oak facade that segregated the choir-stand from the cruciform. She then climbed to the top row.