Steal the Sky (29 page)

O
n the Scorched
, the heat rose before the sun did. Detan felt the first probing rays of it before the light crested the flat and ruddy horizon, bringing prickling sweat and parched lips. He shifted the too-wide shoulders of his stolen shirt and dreamed of water.

He wouldn't dare drink. The veneer was too thin, and his struggle to keep it all in place was doing more to make him sweat than the sun ever could. Just ahead rose the guardhouse roof from which the guilty of Aransa were given their choice with the rising of the sun: face the axe, or walk the Black Wash and let the desert decide the depth of your sin. Ripka wouldn't take the axe, he was sure of that. She would take her chances with the wilderness that had forged her.

If she didn't, Detan was going to be mighty upset.

Light snapped free of the horizon at last, chasing down the heat. The mud and stone buildings of Aransa grew warm and vibrant in the rays, no longer grey and dingy under the shadow of night. There was movement amongst the people gathered, anxious and tense. Sour sweat tinged the air, a bitter mingling of excitement and heat and fear.

Dark figures emerged upon the roof, familiar to him even in silhouette. Thratia, slender and full of swagger. Ripka, stiff-backed and stern. Thratia's militiamen came behind, and the round-shouldered form of Ripka's sergeant. Another watcher hovered beside the sergeant, his movements furtive and uncertain, but the cut of his coat gave away his profession. And another Detan didn't recognize.

Squinting, he watched the unfamiliar figure. The doppel? No, she wouldn't dare come this close. Thratia was bound to have a sensitive amongst her guards, and she would have them on high alert this morning. The unknown figure was tall, rectangular beneath the hem of a long coat. He swallowed, and decided to move before his fear anchored him.

Whatever was being said up there, he couldn't hear it. His focus on holding his sel mask was so intense he didn't dare think on anything else. He sidled up to the crowd and weaved his way through while keeping his head down, his face hidden.

Elbows bumped him, fingers reached for his pockets. Sweat threatened to mar his mask, to set his tenuous control trembling. Someone grabbed his wrist, jerked him to the side. Detan staggered, jostling those pressed up against him, and glanced back to see a stone-grey sleeve attached to a rather scarred face.

“Just what in the shit are you doing–” Foamy flecks burst from the militiaman's lips, his voice a growl above the complainant murmur of the crowd. Detan jerked his arm, yanking his wrist free. His hastily wrapped, rubbed-raw hand scraped in the grip of the militiaman's. Needles of pain threatened to overwhelm his control but he bolted forward, spurred on by fear, shoving people aside in his need to reach the roof before Ripka could make her decision. Before that stone-sleeved arm could detain him and ruin the whole thing.

Luckily, no one kept an eye on the guardhouse door, but he supposed that was only natural. Only an idiot would charge up there uninvited when a death sentence was being handed down.

He burst through the door and scrambled across the small room, sucking down air that stank of all that was left unclean in the cells, and found the ladder to the roof. No time to think. No time to let himself back down. He grabbed the rungs and hauled himself up into the full light of the sun.

“Hold him.” Thratia's voice was cool as the desert night, but he sensed a tinge of high-strung unease in it. Rough hands, familiar to him now, dragged him off the last bit of the ladder and his head rushed and buzzed as he split his attention between holding the sel mask and watching the people on the roof.

“Well, well.” Thratia prodded his face with one finger, and he damn near laughed as her mouth opened and her pupils widened enough to make her whole eyes black.

It was just a thin layer. He didn't have the requisite skills to change its structure, to shift the color. But he could make it thin enough to make it clear, and even clear sel rippled when touched. One little ripple was all he needed to sell the thing. A murmur passed through the crowd, and Detan had to fight down an urge to try and listen to what they were saying. The words didn't matter. They'd seen the sel on his face. He could wager a good guess what the whispers were about.

Her dark eyes narrowed with resumed control. “What are you up to, Honding?”

He rasped a laugh. “I'm honored you think my technique is the truth, but we both know the Honding lad doesn't have enough sel-sense to illusion up a turnip, let alone a face.”

“Then why don't you show us your real face, doppel?” Thratia's voice was smooth, bemused. The expression she showed him now was not one belonging to a woman who had just captured the thief of her finest possession. It didn't matter. He just needed the crowd to believe it.

“You don't deserve it,” he spat.

Her lips twitched and she stepped back, arms crossed over her ribs. “All right then, creature. Where's my ship?”

She'd made her voice loud, loud enough to be heard by the people gathered nearest the guardhouse, so Detan did the same. “I destroyed your ship. Smashed it against the sand, every little bit of it, over and over again.”

Another ripple passed through those gathered, but it was nothing compared to the bright spark of rage on Thratia's face. Apparently she was more than willing to believe he'd done her ship harm, even if she couldn't swallow him as the doppel.

He'd never seen such anger before. Her whole body went rigid, every last muscle winding up in preparation for a strike that wasn't coming. She may have been a cruel woman, but she had mastered her temper long ago.

“You broke. My ship.” There was nothing bemused about her voice now.

“Don't believe me? Take a look.”

He gestured to the Black Wash, and prayed Tibs had made it look good. Thratia snatched a sighting glass from Callia's outstretched hand and snapped the little brass tube open. She brought it up to her eye and scanned the darkened sands. Even Detan could see it with his naked eye, a little heap of brown wood in the middle of the obsidian sand.

“Why?” Her voice was tight, irritated, but not yet convinced. The false cabin hadn't supplied nearly enough material to make it look like a whole ship had been destroyed out there.

“This city,
your
city, murdered my son.” The words sounded false to his ears, hackneyed and bitter. Whatever Pelkaia would have said in truth, he couldn't imagine. A real mother's grief was far beyond his basic mummer's skills. But he'd pushed out the words with all the venom he could muster, lifted his head high with defiance. It'd have to do.

Another wave through the crowd, this time stronger. Thratia rolled her eyes, all the hot anger evaporating from her posture. Detan clenched his jaw, waiting for Thratia to act. To call him out. To expose his tone for lacking a real mother's grief. Instead she stepped forward, laced her fingers under his chin and tipped it to the side so that she could whisper flat against his ear.

“Careful now. I've been having a little chat with my friend, the Lady Callia. You see her there?” She turned his head for him, just enough to see the willow-thin figure of a woman dressed in pale blue silks, a slim-cut white coat on despite the heat. Everything about her posture radiated boredom, but she was looking at him with eyes so intense it made him want to squirm.

Fear shot straight through him, tingling his toes and chilling his guts so fast he nearly lost his hold on the sel. He grabbed it again, straining his senses with a grunt, and nearly overdid it. The corners of Thratia's eyes crinkled, recognition of his struggle, and she kept on whispering. “She let me know a little secret, understand? Let me know that that conning fop Detan Honding is a very wanted man indeed.”

He swallowed dry air. “So what? The people gathered here see a doppel squaring off with their new warden. Officially the punishment for doppels is death.” He raised his voice, clear and high so they could all hear it. “I choose to walk the Black.”

She pushed his head away with a flick of her wrist and strode toward Callia. Detan watched them confer, heads close together. He stole a glance at Ripka, and saw nothing short of iron-hot hatred in her eyes. Well, at least she believed he was the doppel.

“I've decided,” the new warden said.

Thratia broke away from Callia and stood near the edge of the guardhouse roof. She held her arms out, palms spread up in welcome to the sun, and lifted her voice. “We have two guilty souls before us this morning, Aransa. Your corrupted watch captain conspired with this abomination, this doppel, to burn the Hub to a husk and steal my ship. Those very boots the doppel is wearing left prints in blood at the place of Mine Master Galtro's death. The watch captain was seen lurking about the Hub just before the flames began. And here now, a confession. The doppel tells me it smashed the
Larkspur
, turned it to kindling in the sand.

“That ship was not just mine, Aransa. That ship was meant to bridge the long gap between this fine city and all the others of the Scorched. To carry supplies and news, to have our streets run flush with trade. And now we are stymied, we are thwarted, by this creature's misplaced revenge.

“In my mind I am certain that the watch captain acted in good faith. Hers is a loyal soul, a Brown Wash soul, and the doppel clearly has twisted her into believing she was doing right. It grieves me, but she is still guilty. Guilty not only of theft and destruction, but of hiding from you, Aransa, her meager ability to sense selium.”

A harsh gasp wound through the crowd, disgusted enough to make even Detan take a step back. He glanced sideways at Ripka, saw the slack shock in the sagging of her jaw, the panic in the whites of her eyes. Thratia bowed her head, letting the angry murmurs spend their course, and then raised her voice once more.

“I know it is difficult to believe. But this woman,” she thrust a finger towards Ripka, “hid her ability to keep herself from the line. To keep herself in the Watch, where she supposed she served you better. Young Watcher Taellen here,” she gestured to the nervous man in blue that Detan had noted earlier, “observed her use these skills himself.”

“I am not sensitive!” Ripka lurched a full step forward before her watchers gathered her under their control, faces contorted by grief and guilt.

“Then why,” the whitecoat spoke as she stepped forward, brows arched high, “do you carry selium on you? I can sense it from here, my dear.”

Ripka's lips pursed, her shoulders shot back – confident the whitecoat was wrong. Confident that she could prove herself innocent of at least this accusation. The presence of sel was slight about her, but with Detan's senses ratcheted so high up he could feel it now. Little slivers of the stuff hidden in the seams of her blues. A memory of Pelkaia-Ripka stroking the lapel of her matching jacket as she mocked his lack of observation crowded into his mind.

Dread coiled in his chest. There was nothing he could do.

“Your coat, please.” The whitecoat held her hand out, long fingers splayed. Momentary confusion crested Ripka's brow, but she slid the garment off and passed it over.

“Watch carefully,” the whitecoat said as she lifted the coat into the air so that those gathered could see. She slipped a knife into her hand – a simple thing for cutting twine and paper – and inserted it into the seam running along the coat's lapel. With a flick of the wrist she opened the cloth. A slender, pearlescent wisp wafted into the searing light of day.

The crowd howled its outrage, but Detan kept his gaze on Ripka. Her expression twisted – first bewilderment, then bright hot anger as realization settled. There was nothing she could do, no protest she could make that would undo the damage done. Any attempt to quibble would make her look like a gibbering fool.

Without a word, Ripka extended her hand for her coat. Callia handed it back without comment. Ripka shrugged it on, straightening the sliced lapel, shoulders stiff with more than pride now. She clasped her hands behind her back so that those gathered could not see them tremble. A little spark of pride burned in Detan's chest and he held himself straighter in her shadow.

“I will not pass judgment on this,” Thratia said, raising her voice to drown out the anger of the crowd. “The theft and fire are crime enough to land her here. And so, the choice. The doppel has already attested its wish to walk the Black. What say you, Miss Leshe? Will the sand cleanse your sins, or the axe?”

Ripka lifted her chin, raised her voice to carry. “I will walk.”

The crowd murmured its approval, and Thratia clapped her hands together above her head. “So be it. Watch Captain Banch, please direct the condemned.”

Detan was thrust forward by the men holding him and made to stand side by side with Ripka, their backs to the crowd and their faces toward the dawn. It was already oppressively hot, vision-warping waves of heat rising up from the glittering black sands. He tried not to think of the corpse he'd stumbled across in the night, desiccated and groping toward a succor it'd never reach, but the vision crowded his mind all the same, and he swallowed a rise of bitter bile. He hoped there were fewer spiders this time.

From the corner of his eye he could see Ripka, steady but wide-eyed. He wanted to say something to alleviate her fear, to give her some hope, but he didn't dare for fear of being overheard. And anyway, she was doing her best not to look at him, her lips held in thin disgust and her back straight as a mast-pole. Facing her death with dignity and pride. He didn't dare sully that.

Thratia leaned over his shoulder and murmured so that only he could hear, “I'm not fooled, Honding. Enjoy your last moments of freedom.”

The new warden laid her hands on both of their backs, and shoved.

T
he black sands
rose up to meet her faster than she expected. It took a great strength of will not to cry out as she landed, palms first, and rolled through the glittering dust. The sands of the Brown Wash had been soft, worn smooth and round by wind and time, but the Black Wash resisted all such ministrations. The glass-like sand was forever abrasive, and she held her breath to keep from breathing much in until the cloud around her settled.

When she stood, her knees were shaky and her hands abraded.

“You all right?”

She glanced over at the doppel, its miner's attire covered in black dust and its face skewed from the fall. The Detan-mask was twisted, one cheek drooping so much that the selium had lost its color and returned to its usual prismatic shimmer. It looked as if the heat of the desert was melting the creature away, and the fact that it looked like Detan unsettled her greatly.

Where was that dustswallower, anyway? Probably halfway across the Scorched by now. Served her right, putting her faith in a conman. No, that was unfair. Maybe he'd just run out of time.

“Leave me be, creature,” she snapped as she took her first few steps across the Black.

With each step, she grew to realize that her blues were dangerous to more than her pride. As the heat rose, her ruined coat trapped it against her skin. She unbuttoned it, let it hang open to catch the breeze on the thin off-white shirt she wore beneath, but she would not drop it. Not this close to the city.

Never mind that one of her own watchers had betrayed her – and for what? Thratia wouldn't give Taellen any favors. Not after this. Not after he'd proven how thin his allegiance really was. She pumped her legs harder, forcing herself away from Aransa as quickly as she could without breaking into a full run. Heat began to well out of the neckline of her coat, making her breaths short. To be accused of arson and theft was one thing. To have her own people point at her and say she betrayed her service to them was just too much.

Precious water rimmed her eyes, and she wiped it furiously away.

“Easy now, Ripka,” the doppel said, its voice rough with imitation of the real man.

“Captain,” she said on reflex, and regretted it. Could she still call herself the watch captain? Maybe. She supposed it didn't matter, anyway. It was a little something to hold onto until she died.

Ripka stopped her march and looked around. The city wall loomed behind her, but any sheltering shadow it may have offered was blasted clear by the sun's unforgiving angle. What was the sun to forgive? It was insensate, inexorable. It didn't notice, and it wouldn't have cared, that Ripka was about to die under its glare.

Faint white glints winked at her between the matrix of the black sands, and with a sinking stomach she recognized them for what they were. Bones, broken and scattered. Most were unrecognizable now, their shape worn down by the bite of obsidian, their placement skewed by the winds. She looked upon them all, swallowing a lump of self-loathing. She'd done this, she'd created this grisly graveyard, in sending the condemned to walk. And now she was about to lay down and join them. Ripka pushed aside all feeling and trained her gaze on the path she must walk to survive.

In the direction of the sun the Fireline Ridge rose, its pocked back looking like the whipped hide of a great beast, the Smokestack jutting like a broken spine from the middle. It cast a shadow across the sand, reaching toward her. A false promise. There was no way she would make it there before the heat took her. Maybe she could find something in the wreckage of the
Larkspur
to shade herself with.

It seemed so close, that humped shelter of stone. But she knew all too well that the distance was distorted by the wavering horizon, that whatever she found in the
Larkspur
would offer little relief.

Under the full light of day, the black grains absorbed the heat and threw it back at you until you collapsed from heat sickness. She knew the signs, the symptoms. Dizziness, delirium. Clotted tongue and a cessation of sweat. The backs of her hands already felt dry, her tongue too big for her mouth. Soon her skin would begin to blister, to peel, to slough off to the sand below. If she were lucky she might faint from the pain before organ failure began. Before her eyes began to burst their fluids from their sockets.

Even if she did make it to the ridge, her life was forfeit. The climbing there was rough, the heat made it scorching, and if she made it up to one of the facilities on the ridge she would be recognized.

Your life, once condemned, was free for the taking. And with accusations of hiding sel-sense riding the winds, there wasn't a soul alive that'd ever offer her shelter. She urged herself toward the ridge with long, ground-eating strides, and the doppel rushed along to catch up.

“Angle south towards the baths,” it said.

“I'll go where I please.”

“Pits below, do you still not see it?”

She stopped dead and turned to regard the doppel. Its face was still melting, pearlescent selium mixed with the diamond glitter of sweat. Ripka brought her hand up to shade her eyes and still had to squint, the reflection from the sand was so bright. The doppel grinned at her in a stupid, familiar way. The voice it affected was damned near perfect. Her back stiffened.

“You dustswallowing idiot–”

“Easy now. Save it until we're at the ridge. Thratia has got me figured out but the rest don't and I'd rather not give them any ideas.”

“Why?”

“She can't search the city in earnest for a doppel the people think is out here dying in the Black, understand? Gives us a chance to find her still.”

“What do you care?”

“Keep pushing me and I'll find reasons not to.”

His voice was strained, snappish. Even beneath the selium his cheeks were slapped red by the sun, rosy despite his deep tan. Sweat poured off him, and he swayed a bit where he stood.

“You injured?”

“Hah.” His laugh was coarse and wild. “Not yet.”

“Who's keeping that selium on you, anyway?” Her eyes narrowed, cold suspicion creeping through her. “You got the doppel hiding out here somewhere?”

He tilted his head and licked his lips. “I told you I don't know where she is.”

She sucked air through her teeth in a sharp whistle. “Then you're still–”

“Just walk, all right? I got enough on my mind. This isn't easy.”

He trudged off, cutting a tight line toward the baths, and she followed at his side. To take her mind off the heat, she stole glances at him as he struggled along beside her. While the sun's blaze was tough on her, it seemed to be taking an extreme toll on him.

Each step was slightly off center from the last, causing him to sway and veer at random. By midway across the Wash his clothes were soaked through and his breath came in gasps. Watching his struggle made her own pain feel small.

“You have to rest,” she said.

He came to a sharp halt, as if all this time he'd been dragged forward by an unseen pulley that had just been cut, his limbs going straight and still. “Can't stop too long,” he rasped. “The sun doesn't stop just because you have.”

Ripka tore a strip from her shirt and tied it around her forehead to keep the sweat from her eyes. He stared at it, mouth open. “Want me to make you one?”

“I can't…” He staggered, startling her into motion. She grabbed his arm, holding him upright.

“Look, whatever you're doing with that selium is going to kill you before the sun does. You've got to stop it. We're far enough away from the wall no one will notice. Just drop it.”

“Hah.”

“Don't ‘hah' at me. Let it go, Detan. Now.”

He rolled his eyes to look at her, wide and white and wild. “First time you ever called me Detan.”

“Then you'd better listen.”

He grunted and closed his eyes, and she knew in that moment he was going down. She dug her fingers into his arm, desperate that the small dose of pain would snap him back to himself. Instead he snorted and shook her off. “Let me concentrate, woman.”

Selium poured off his face, neck, and upper chest like thick syrup. Most of her experience with the stuff had been with it contained, hidden away in the buoyancy sacks of ferries or cargo-transports. To be so close to the raw material… It made her small hairs stand up, despite the heat. Detan opened his eyes, and the sheets of it entwined to form a ball about the size of her two fists pushed together. Worth enough to pay her sergeant for half a year.

“Need to weigh it down.”  His words were tight and clipped, urgent.

She dragged off her coat and threw it over the ball, letting the heavy material do some good work for once. Detan sighed and his shoulders slumped. He brought one hand up to rub at his eyes while the other fumbled in his pocket.

“Damn stuff wants to go up-up-up no matter what.” He pulled out a bit of twine and tied her coat around the hovering ball, making it look like the balloons used for short-range transport vessels. Taking firm hold of the dangling twine, he wrapped it around his fingers a few times and gave it a tug to secure it. “Can't tie it to your wrist unless you want to lose that hand, and you
definitely
don't want this much sel tied to your belt.”

Ripka laughed so hard and sudden that she spit. With a grimace she wiped her mouth and immediately regretted it as the back of her hand tore the thin, dried skin of her lips. Blood smeared her hand, her cheek. She resisted the urge to spit out what had gotten in her mouth – she needed all the moisture she could get. Detan looked hale already, or at least better than the stumbling, sweating shade of a man he had been. He was even smiling, which she thought was pretty stupid considering the circumstances.

The selium pushed against its containment, flattening the top curve of the balloon just enough to cast a small shadow over them both. Ripka sighed with relief, that sliver of shade the most luxurious thing she'd ever experienced.

In silence they trudged forward, heads bent and necks extended as if they could reach the wreckage of the
Larkspur
faster if only they could stretch out their bodies.

“Almost there,” he said as they drew near, lips cracking with each syllable. She wanted to do something for that, to ease his pain a little. Wished she had something for her own lips, too. There were salves back in the city, tinctures to smooth the burn of the sun. Some plants she knew to be good for sun exposure, their dewy leaves capable of producing a cool balm. She scanned the area, taking in the vast emptiness all around them. Not so much as a scrub broke through the rough soil.

Ripka frowned, eyeing the wreckage with care. She'd seen the
Larkspur
only once before, but she was certain there wasn't nearly enough wood to cover the whole ship smashed on the sands before them. “What is–?”

Detan laughed and threw his arms wide. “Welcome to Tibs's cabin. We were saving it to cover the disappearance of the
Larkspur
, but this seemed a more pressing matter.”

It did look like the cabin of a ship, one that had been dropped on its side and cracked open like an egg. The walls leaned outward at crazy angles, the fresh-milled timber filling the air with the warm scent of some sort of resinous hardwood. Stunned, she followed Detan into what was left of the shelter, and nearly wept with joy when she saw Tibs had stashed a full amphora of water amongst the rubble.

Without a word they sat in the makeshift shade and shared out the sand-warmed water in slow, careful draws. After some rummaging, Detan found a cloth-wrapped package of dried meat and a small jar of pulpleaf salve. Beneath a broken beam he discovered a wide-brimmed hat, the edges singed, and Ripka was shocked to see his eyes glisten and his face screw up with the threat of tears.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Fine, fine.” He cleared his throat and pulled the hat on his head, then offered her a scarf to cover her own head with and the packet of meat. Despite being hard and stringy, it was the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted.

“Ready for the final press?” Detan asked when the water and food was gone.

“You think we'll make it?” She handed the now half-empty jar of pulpleaf salve to him, already feeling her skin soften and cool from its application.

“Oh, captain, it's not the heat that kills you. It's Thratia's assassins waiting on the ridge.”

Ripka glanced sideways at him, and saw him grinning like an idiot. As usual. “Wonderful.”

He began to apply the remaining salve with extreme care, his bandaged hand trembling with the effort as he held the jar in his good hand. After a moment, Ripka knelt before him. Without a word, she took the jar and pushed his wounded hand aside, knowing just where he'd gotten that particular injury, and took over smearing the salve against his already blistering arms. He cleared his throat and shifted, uncomfortable. Keeping her gaze locked on her work, she said, “Thank you.”

“Said I wouldn't let you walk.”

She glanced up at him, unable to help a wry smile. “That worked out well.”

He barked a laugh. “Best I could do under the circumstances.”

She finished applying the salve and stood, tossing the empty jar to the sand. He sat there a moment, eyes drooping, sweat turning the fringe of his hair into spikes against his brow, the selium balloon tugging at his good fingers. The phantom of Tibal's words came back to her, his warning of Detan's temper, and she shunted them aside, guilt beginning to gnaw at her. No matter that he was in some way responsible for the fire that'd seen her shoved out here. He'd come back. Though it killed her pride to admit it, he'd saved her, when he didn't have to. They locked gazes, and she looked away, proffering her hand.

“Time to go and see what Thratia has waiting for us,” she said.

“Well, this will be interesting,” he said as he took her hand and stood, his little balloon bobbing crazily. She forced herself along beside him, huddling close to keep under the shade of the balloon. Somehow, she managed to keep her tone light despite their coalescing disaster.