Crystal Rain (31 page)

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Authors: Tobias S. Buckell

BOOK: Crystal Rain
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Five Azteca airships moved in with the clouds. They dropped several bombs before turning around and leaving. They had flown too high for any of the guns on Capitol City’s walls to reach them, and they had left by the time any of Capitol City’s airships took to the air. They’d been doing that all day.
Haidan had finally gotten a series of patrols in the sky to try to keep the Azteca airships at bay.
He walked down the street toward his house. He was tired, his cough had flared up, and he found himself perpetually out of breath. Three mongoose-men moved with him. One caught his arm when he stumbled over an uneven flagstone.
“I sorry,” Haidan said. “Let’s pause.” He leaned against a brick wall and caught his breath. Too many late nights, going 100 percent with no rest. The Azteca bombing airships had arrived, Firstop had fallen quiet, and the first Azteca warriors trundled in large cannons to open fire on Capitol City’s trenches. They’d been funneled right into the area of the peninsula he wanted, but they were testing his defenses, and waiting for the rest of the Azteca to catch up with them. And now his sickness had caught up with him. Haidan needed to rest as the siege began.
An armed squad of grim-looking Tolteca walked by and nodded.
“Where they headed?” Haidan asked.
“Outside the wall to fight. They volunteer.”
“I wonder how long they go fight their own kin,” Haidan said.
“You don’t trust the Tolteca,” the other bodyguard said. “How come?”
“Is not the Tolteca I worried about.” Haidan put his hands on his knees. “It all the Azteca spy who hiding in the Tolteca who volunteer to fight.”
The two bodyguards shrugged. “Too late to worry now.”
“It never too late to worry.”
“That’s true.”
They stood and looked at each other for a while. Then Haidan looked at the band of Tolteca marching to protect the city. “Either way, it damn good to see so many mongoose-men out,” he said. A high-pitched whistle filled his ears and the world exploded around him. The wall he had been leaning against crumbled. The bricks struck him. It all slumped on top of him, blacking everything out. Haidan coughed as he inhaled dust.
The roaring in his ears stopped.
He stirred.
He hurt all over. In several places it was more than the press of brick, but the pain of broken bones. Haidan moaned and tried to push the heavy weight off him, but he was too weak.
Voices filtered down to him. After several minutes large pieces of wall were dragged away from on top of him. One of the bodyguards and several Tolteca scraped away the rubble and pulled him out.
They strapped him to a piece of board and carried him down the street. Every few seconds a concerned face would look down at him and ask him if he was okay.
He tried to reply, but his voice croaked, and there seemed to be a lot of blood everywhere. He’d planned. He’d planned enough that it would go on, he told himself. No matter how tiring this was, no matter how he was hurt, the city would fight without him. Dihana and his men would see to it.
Far, far over the city, he watched a pair of airships crash into each other and burn.
Haidan was relieved to close his eyes, black out, and finally get some rest.
 
 
The icy lands stretched out around them. Fast winds bit into the sides of
La Revanche
and made the rigging sing. Anyone not on watch huddled below near the ship’s kitchen fires or in the boiler rooms.
On the second day word spread throughout the ship as they passed between two great mountains of snow that something wondrous was to be seen from the decks. Through clear sheets of translucent ice, great slabs of silvery metal flashed back at them.
Buildings, hundreds of feet high, had been caught in the ice.
John stood with several mongoose-men at the ship’s rail. Someone asked the inevitable question.
“What are they?”
“Things left over from the old-fathers,” John said. Great buildings, leaning over at strange angles as they were swept away in slow motion by the blocks of ice. A great city had stood here once.
Welcome back, he thought. Yes, this was …
Oaxyctl walked over to John. “They are made of a metal?”
“It glints like metal,” John said, losing the feeling of another fleeting memory. “But there is glass as well.” He pointed. The buildings had rooms, and they could see furniture inside. It made John shiver. It was as if he were looking at a perfectly preserved piece of time.
The familiar feeling came again. John let go of the railing and turned to walk away, but his wounded leg buckled under him. Oaxyctl grabbed his shoulder and held him.
“Buildings by them god,” someone marveled. “No man could make them thing.”
John shook his head. “The old-fathers made Capitol City.” The sailors didn’t look so sure. “They were powerful men. Not gods. Men.”
“How long before we arrive?” they asked.
“Three days.” John leaned over and looked at the deck, almost talking to himself. “Just outside the city.”
The name on the map said this was Starport. It echoed around John’s head for a while. Stars. The old-fathers launched their great ships all the way to the stars from here.
“Whoa,” Oaxyctl muttered, catching him again.
John’s leg would not cooperate. Frustrated, he hung from Oaxyctl.
This was no way to lead an expedition.
“Take me to my cabin. Get the mongoose doctor-man,” John ordered.
Oaxyctl helped him hop over to the nearest companionway and struggle down into the ship.
 
John began sweating. The humid belowdecks, dank and dark, set something off in him. He fought off a touch of
claustrophobia. The bulkheads loomed in on him, and his vision blurred.
It was too close, too dark. He’d spent an eternity in dark, cramped spaces, and he was sick of them.
“I don’t feel so well,” he said as Avasa walked into the cabin and Barclay came close behind.
“Sir,” Avasa said. “If that the case, you should hand over the chart. Let we navigate. You need to stay below, stay warm. Rest. Don’t use your foot.”
And maybe Avasa was too helpful, John thought. What happened when he handed over the map to the thin mongoose leader?
He couldn’t be sure. Or maybe he was paranoid.
Barclay leaned against the doorjamb with his hands crossed over his chest. “Ain’t no matter.” He shrugged. “When food get half out, we turn back. Right?”
John wiped his forehead with a sleeve. “We run out of food in ten days with no rationing. We have plenty of time.”
“Then no worry,” Barclay said. “We got four day to search for this … thing, we should do okay.”
“Maybe,” Avasa said. “But not if it buried under the ice.”
John began unwrapping the bandages around his thigh with his good hand. The strips of gauze were sticky and wet. The faint smell of decay made his heart sink. “You’re right, Avasa. But now is not the time.” John regarded his thigh with disappointment.
Avasa’s surgeon walked in. “What happen?”
John pulled off another bandage. He met the surgeon’s eyes. “Everyone out. Leave.” John waved them out. Parasites. Expecting him to die. Or turn around. He couldn’t. Pepper had told him Jerome was still alive. He didn’t know where Shanta was.
They were far, far from here.
He’d be damned if he died so far from them. Damned if he didn’t finish this mad attempt to turn the scales back on the Azteca.
John looked at the surgeon. “No cutting. Not yet.”
“The longer you wait, the more likely you go dead.” The mongoose-man looked at John as if he were crazy. “It smell infect. Gangrenous.”
“You can’t operate,” John said fiercely. This insistence made no sense, but he did know that for some reason the idea of someone cutting into his leg scared him almost more than the thought that there might be someone on board the ship trying to sabotage the mission.
He had to rely on his instincts. Here, they were all he had.
The surgeon sighed and opened one of the cupboards near John’s desk to fetch more gauze.
After enduring more bandaging, John dismissed him and pored over the map, trying to memorize what was blank white past the coastline.
He would get them there yet and still remain in command.
 
John woke in the middle of the night. Feverish. Pepper sat near his bed, watching him, and John wasn’t surprised.
“How are you feeling?” Pepper asked.
“Not so well.” John looked around, eyes barely focusing. “They want to cut my leg. I won’t let them.”
“Good. It isn’t like your hand, clean separation. The leg will have more mods. Don’t want those cut, now do you?”
“What are you doing here? How’d you escape?”
“There are men among the crew who’re going to mutiny.” Pepper shifted. He hadn’t shaved in days, and John could see a patchy beard beginning to grow in. Pepper’s eyes reflected a random piece of light.
“What are they saying?” John asked.
“They say that you don’t know what you are doing. That we are chasing a bush tale. That we should head for Cowfoot Island and hide from the Azteca there.”
John sighed. “I just have to hold it together for two more days. That’s all. Then we will see if Edward and the Loa were right about the
Ma Wi Jung.
”
“We’re close, John, but we may not have that long.” Pepper moved over and sat on the bed next to John. Clumps of ice slid off his coat onto the bed.
John looped his good arm around Pepper’s arm. He still didn’t understand what Pepper’s goals were, but for this shadowy moment, he felt an unspoken brotherhood with the man. “You shouldn’t be out. The crew will kill you if they realize you’ve escaped.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Steps toward the cabin door prompted Pepper to stand up. “I have to go, John.” He pulled his coat tight around him. “It’s hard to see you like this, man. You and me, we were just about the most dangerous things out there. Now here we are, messing around on this small little world, facing death. Unknown. Insignificant.” Pepper walked over to the rear porthole and opened it. A blast of cold air made John shiver. “Now we’re just alone.” Pepper slithered through the porthole, twisting and contorting to fit through a space that John didn’t think anyone could have fit through.
“Where are you going?” John asked as Pepper dropped out of the porthole.
Pepper’s hands grabbed the lip, and he looked into the cabin. “Out. Off this contraption. But I will be close by, John. Always close. If anything happens, strike out into the snow, quick. I’ll be there soon enough. Hear?”
John nodded, and a hand knocked at the door. Pepper closed the porthole behind him and disappeared into the night.
“Come in,” John said.
Barclay strode in. “We got a problem.” His mouth etched out a grim line, his eyes narrowed. John didn’t know Barclay well, but he could see the anger in Barclay’s tense posture. “We missing food.”
“Help me up,” John said. “How much are we missing?”
“What we going do?”
“How much are we missing?” John repeated.
Barclay slammed the palm of his hand into the desk by the door. “Half.” He looked at John and nodded. “Enough to get back, seen? Someone plan this real careful.”
John balanced on his good leg. “Call everyone topside, awake or asleep. We give orders. Half rations.”
“They ain’t go like it. Not a bit.”
“I know. But what’s the alternative? Our only hope is this damn machine everyone wants, you know that. Or do you think we have enough men in Capitol City to hold off the Azteca?”
Barclay shook his head.
“Do it,” John ordered. “Get someone to help me up the companionway.” Damn it, they were so close!
Barclay walked off, shoulders slumped over. John hobbled over to the steps that led up into the dark, cold air. He could see stars just past the rails that led up.
He shifted the crude crutch. Things were coming to a head, he realized. And a stubborn part in the back of his brain told him that there was no way he could back down. Some old part of him, long since forgotten, insisted that they find this machine. No matter what the cost. John’s breath steamed the air as he thought about how to get the sailors to find that same determination.
 
 
So now what, John? he whispered to himself when Oaxyctl helped him out of the companionway and onto the deck. He wobbled for a second, the skin on his face crinkling as the cold wind brushed at him.
Far in front of
La Revanche
great jagged edges of metal and ice grew out of the snows. They looked like shark fins. The landscape had changed from the natural to the unnatural. The graveyard of the old-fathers, John thought. Their ancient ships, their buildings, stuck in this snowy waste.
La Revanche
lurched to a stop, and John toppled forward. He braced against the fall with his arms, then struggled back to his knees. All twenty sailors stood on deck, and the mongoose-men lined the rails, shivering.
“What the hell is going on?” John snapped.
Barclay walked forward and John’s shoulders slumped. He could tell. Something in Barclay’s walk alone. He hadn’t kept control. “You?” John asked. “You’re turning the ship around, aren’t you?”
“Sorry.” Barclay looked down at John. “I had tell you we only had half we supply. But I lie. I’d hope you would have turned back when I told you this. But instead, you want push on.”
“So you think we chasing a fairy tale?”
“We think we lucky if we make it back alive.”
“Back where?” John yelled. “Capitol City? Or you go hide in the bush, on Cowfoot Island? Where?”
The sailors muttered when they heard Cowfoot Island.
“Already one of we lose they finger to the cold,” Barclay said. “This ain’t right. This weather, this place. We ain’t supposed to be here. If we leave now, we could hide on Cowfoot Island, build more boat, build some weapon. If we turn back now, we could fight.”
“How long you think you can stay on Cowfoot Island?” John grunted and pulled himself up to stand on one leg. “Weeks? Months? Then the Azteca come and wipe you away when they realize people hiding there.”
“Then we hide in the jungle,” someone yelled. “At least we live.”
John walked forward. “This is foolishness.” He took another half step forward and Barclay pushed him. John flailed over backward and the side of his head hit a cleat. He bled onto the icy deck.
Several mongoose-men stepped forward and the sailors produced spears and guns. An uneasy silence settled across the deck.
“So what are you going to do with me?” John asked, looking straight at the forest of boots shuffling on the deck. Pepper had told him to go out onto the ice. But John didn’t have the strength to stand. The dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.
“Lock you up, take you with us,” Barclay said.
“Why don’t you leave me here.” John coughed and pulled his cheek off the cold deck. “Leave me here with food, water, let me try to find the machine myself.”
Barclay shook his head.
“He go die anyway,” someone shouted. “Toss him.”
“No,” Barclay said. “If we amputate him leg now, rest him up, keep him warm, he go live.”
“They don’t want that,” John said. “What do you do with me anyway? Maybe I’ll tell others about your treachery. Suppose I wander around, saying that you had a chance to save Capitol City, their brothers and cousins, from being sacrificed, or spending their lives as slaves?”
Barclay looked around, judging the air for himself.
“If you leave me,” John said, “you won’t have that on your conscience. You can still say you left me out here, and that if I didn’t find the machine, it was because it didn’t exist. Or it didn’t work.”
“Okay.” Barclay swallowed. “You stay.” He looked around. “Get him supplies.”
The sailors spread out.
“Who will go with him?” Oaxyctl asked, still standing behind John. Barclay paused. “He can’t walk. And there are people on this ship who don’t want to turn around.”
“Go with him, then, Azteca,” Barclay said. “Who else?”
Avasa stepped forward. “I will go.” The long line of mongoose-men stirred, but he flicked his finger. He turned and pointed at two more mongoose-men. “As will they.”
“You have twenty minutes,” Barclay said. “Then
La Revanche
steaming back to the ocean.”
John dug the tip of his hook into the deck, splintering wood as he ground his teeth. He’d said he would get to the
Ma Wi Jung
and bring it back any way he could. Pepper had told him he was the code.
He would get the
Ma Wi Jung.
“Oaxyctl,” he whispered. “There are maps in my cabin.”
Barclay heard him and shook his head. “We need the maps to retrace the route, deBrun. You on you own.”
John nodded. He had it memorized anyway. Instead he told Oaxyctl where to find the device the Loa gave him in Capitol City. Just in case.
Twenty minutes later Avasa and Oaxyctl helped him into the snow. The cold seeped through his clothes. Two sailors hopped down after them, silently agreeing to become part of the marooned group.
La Revanche
left the pack of seven a skiff and a pair of axes. Oaxyctl wasted no time in hacking the small boat apart to make a crude sled for John. Once done, the six men grabbed the ropes and pulled.
On the sled, John and several bags of supplies moved forward toward the massive scythelike fins in the distance.
“I hope,” Avasa said, “this thing we are searching for will be able to save us now, or we will die in the ice.”
Oaxyctl, John noticed out of the corner of his eye, said nothing. He just looked back at the ship with dread in his eyes. It was as if he expected it to come bearing down on them at any moment.

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