The Stolen Child (25 page)

Blinking away the spots from her eyes, she looked through the open door.  
T
he deck of the ship was
as long as
a football pitch, bordered on all sides by open blue sky.

“Come on,” Arsha bellowed over the roar of the wind, and waved her out onto the deck.

The sun burned down
at
them from a clear sky.  
Tiny wisps of cloud whipped past the ship on either side
.  Running to the railing that surrounded the deck, Rachael leaned over, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ground below.  Peering through the rigging that bedecked the underside of the
hull
she caught only glimpses of a
deep blue ocean
.  It was staggeringly beautiful.  She had never even been on a plane before, but she imagined that even that could not compare to standing out on the deck of a ship, seeing open sky all around and below you.  Something impossible, incredible, and utterly beautiful.

“Where are we?”
s
he yelled at Arsha.

“
We're in the Ways,” Arsha yelled back.
 

“
The what?”
 

“
The Ways.”
 

“You're saying that like it's supposed to mean something,” Rachael
replied
, struggling to keep shouting over the wind.

“The
W
ays are like...”

Arsha grimaced, and gestured towards the tower behind them.  At first Rachael thought she meant for them to go back inside, but instead Arsha lead them around the side of the tower and up a small flight of steps, towards the huge tail assembly of the ship.  Sheltered below the back part of the bridge, behind the bulk of the tower, the wind died off and they could talk normally.
 

“
So where on Earth are we, exactly?” Rachael said, as Arsha leaned out over the back railing.
 

“
Well, we're not.  We left the Hearth... I mean, Earth, like you'd call it... We left there while you were still out.  We've been travelling through the Ways for most of a day now.  We're heading for Tiras,” the girl said, as she fumbled around for something in the mass of rigging that trailed off the ship.
 

“
Is that a country?  And what do you mean about leaving Earth?”
 

“
It's not a country really... It's, well... It's a world,” Arsha said, as she turned around with a couple of lengths of steel cable caught in one gloved hand.  Looking up, Rachael saw that the cables ran all the way from the top of the tail fin and down past the edge of the deck.
 

“
Wait, you mean like...” Rachael paused, as she recalled some of what Justin had told her.  “So these way thingies, they're like
the places where you can slip between these worlds, right?  But I thought they were supposed to be… I dunno… Like stepping through a door or something.”
 

Arsha laughed.
 

“
It's not that easy.  If you could walk through the Ways, we wouldn't need ships, I bet.”
 

As Arsha spoke, she reached for the front of Rachael's coat, and fished out several large metal clips on thick straps.  She began to methodically attach each of the clips to the first cable.
 

“
So how does it work then, flying through these things?
”

Arsha smiled and shrugged.

“Sorry, I really don't know
that much about it
.  You should ask Abasi some time.  He's an expert navigator.  He knows all about the Ways.  But even he says there's lots about them we just don't understand.”

“So you have, like, maps or something?”

“Well, something like that.  The Ways are complicated.  They shift and change.  Sometimes the patterns are predictable, sometimes they aren't.  So travelling from one place to another, it's not always the same.”

“
So why's it look like we're over an ocean then?” Rachael said, as Arsha tested the last of the clips.  Apparently satisfied, the girl produced another set of clips from her own coat.
 

“
Dad says that the Ways are sort of... They don't have a proper shape.  Stuff that you can see and touch.  So, they build themselves out of bits of other worlds.  Like a whole bunch of
random pieces of stuff thrown together,” she said, as she began to attach herself to the other cable.
 

“That's insane.  How can all this be hiding, like no one ever sees it?  How's no one from my world ever found them?”

“Because you have to know where to look.  They're not something you can see.  You just have to know where you're going.  People from your world, they don't even know the Ways exist,”
Arsha said, as she tested the last clip.
 

“Doesn't anyone ever just find one, by accident?”

“Sometimes?  Dad says it's very rare, but it does happen.”

“And what happens to them after that?” Rachael said.

Seemingly at a loss for words, Arsha just gestured in Rachael's direction.
 

“
Oh.  Right,” Rachael said.  “So... What are we doing here anyhow?”
 

Arsha grinned and hoisted herself up to sit on the railing, with her back to the open sky.
 

“
Something fun,” she said.  Before Rachael could ask what she meant, the girl spread her arms, raised her head, and fell backwards off the deck.
 

Rachael leaned out across the
railing
just in time to see the cable going taut as it took Arsha's weight.  
The line followed
along the
underside
of the hull, and
the girl
slid along it like a streak of lightning, mouth open in a scream of delirious excitement.

Rachael's head span as she saw the girl disappear from view.  She took another wary look up at the windows above, but saw no movement.  
T
he clouds
below them
parted for a moment, and all she saw was a vast expanse of open water.  From this height, she knew she'd never
even
survive the impact.

She backed away slowly from the edge.  
S
he tugged at the clips, wanting to be sure that they were secure, though for the life of her she had no idea how to go about checking them.  
Taking a deep breath
she dropped into a sprint, cleared the railing in a flying leap, and fell into the vast expanse beyond.

For one dizzying moment she was flying.  Through the thinning clouds the ocean glittered in the sunlight, and
the
air seemed strangely still.  Then the cable snapped t
ight
, whipping her round violently to face the ship as gravity took hold.  
H
er stomach lurched and the hull went rushing past above her.  It took a moment to realise that she was screaming.

The ride bottomed out, and then the arc of the cable drew her upwards
as
her momentum
fell
away.  She reached the crest of her arc and for an instant she hung weightless.  
She blinked, and saw
the weathered grain of the wooden hull floating just before her eyes.
 
A
s she was about to fall away
again,
she felt a hand grab at the sleeve of her coat.

Arsha's mouth was moving excitedly, shaping words she could not hear as the girl gestured at something.  Looking about wildly, Rachael saw that Arsha was holding onto a rope ladder that had been bolted to the underside of the hull.  There were several, evenly spaced with various ropes and cables hanging a
round
them.  She snatched at the nearest rope and held on tight.  With Arsha's help she was able to manoeuvre across to a ladder.  She watched in a daze as Arsha fiddled with the clips, detaching her from the line that ran
along the belly of the ship
and affixing her to one that followed the ladder up.  Properly secured, they both climbed back up onto the deck, flopping across the railing like a pair of beached fish.

Neither of them said another word until they were back inside and the door
was
shut behind them.  Breathless, Rachael looked over at Arsha, who was still grinning insanely.  
H
er own expression must have looked quite similar.  Stripped of her heavy coat, she rubbed the warmth back into her arms, her heart still racing.

“That... was... awesome,”
s
he gasped, between breaths.

“
I know,
” Arsha said, still grinning wildly.  “
I've always wanted to try that.”
 

Still leaning her weight against the wall, trying to catch her breath, Rachael looked up at the girl in horror.
 

“You what?”

Arsha
at least
had the decency to look
embarrassed.
 

“You mean you've never done that?  What if you'd mucked up with all the ropes and stuff?  We could have died.”

Arsha shrugged.

“We'd have been alright.  We had coats on.”

“Coats?  What the flip is coats going to do if we're falling from the sky?”

“They're tanglecloth,” Arsha said, as if this explained everything.

“What?”

“Tanglecloth,”
t
he girl repeated.

“Yeah, and you need to get to the part where you explain what that means,” Rachael prompted.

“It sort of... It catches the air, so when you're falling you don't fall so fast,” Arsha said, rubbing the sleeve of the coat in demonstration.  Rachael ran her fingers over the sleeve, but
whilst it did have an oddly prickly texture, she really couldn't see what help that would be
.

“So you wear these coats and it's like... Parachutes?”

“I guess,” Arsha shrugged.  “
Most of us use coats.  Ilona likes her cloak better
.”

“So that's why she didn't mind jumping off the building like that?” Rachael said.  
Then, as she considered this, a thought occurred to her.
 

“
Hold on… Even if we had these parachute coat things on… We'd still be falling into the middle of all that, y'know, not really real ocean stuff, right?”
 

“Uh…
Right,” Arsha said, her expression slowly shifting from amusement to horror.  “Oh Fates,” the girl moaned.  “I didn't think of that.”
 

Unable to keep herself from smiling, Rachael squeezed Arsha's shoulder.
 

“
Well, I guess it's good you didn't muck it up then,” she said.
 

Still looking slightly bewildered, Arsha pushed the inner door open.  
Rachael's
smile vanished
as the
widening opening
reveal
ed
a tall,
dark
skin
ned
man with jet
black hair
that was
shading to grey.  
He had removed his heavy goggles since Rachael last saw him, revealing features that were lean and angular, his eyes deep set and narrowed in a look of fury
.  
Glancing over
at Arsha, Rachael watched as the girl's
expression
fell.

“
Girls.  I think we'd best sit down and have a talk,
”
h
e said.  
It took barely an instant for Rachael to compose herself.
 

“Sure.  Yeah.  Let's talk,”
she
said.  The
man
nodded towards the stairs, and they made their way down and through into the mess hall.  
H
e gestured for them to sit
as
he
busied himself at the stove
.  Arsha
looked
as if she might burst into tears.  Rachael
just
leaned back against the wall with her arms folded.

“Rachael, would you care for some tea?”
the man
said, with an almost unearthly calm.

“No.  Thanks,”
s
he said, curtly.

Eventually
he sat down with two steaming mugs, setting one in front of his daughter
.  Then he sat and sipped his tea.  Arsha pulled her cup close, but didn't drink.  The girl seemed as
perplexed
as Rachael felt.

“How are you feeling?”
t
he professor said, setting his cup down.  
He seemed to have regained his composure, his expression calm, almost pleasant.  She studied his face
, trying to figure out just what he was playing at.

“Fine,”
she said.
  “Peachy.”

“Well, I'm glad you've both found a way to entertain yourselves,” he remarked.  “You and I, young lady, will be having a stern discussion about that later,” he added, looking at Arsha.  The girl stared down at her tea, cheeks burning.
 

“I suppose you have a lot of questions,”
h
e
continued, looking up at Rachael again
.  “Why don't you let me
answer a few
.”

“Sure.  Great.  We'll start with 'When do we get back to London?'”

“We don't.  Right now, it's simply not possible for us to bring you home again.”  
He paused, for a moment.
  “Nor do I expect it ever will be,”
he added, heavily.
 

“Right.  Kind of figured as much.  So, did you have a reason for kidnapping me, or was it just for kicks?  I mean, it's not like no-one's going to pay much for me,”
s
he said.

“You're not a prisoner,”
t
he professor said, patiently.

“But I can't go home?”

“No.  Not any more.  'Home' is not a safe place for you right now.  
Not least because the men who actually tried to kidnap you will not have given up yet.  Their father, Lord Manindra Bhandari, is a powerful Guild councillor and a man of considerable reach and influence.
”

“That's a nice excuse.  You're real good at finding reasons why I shouldn't mind being beaten up, hauled off and made a prisoner and all.”