“You’re sure ‘dis is where she was standin’?” Livinea asks, directing the ‘air back into her bun. Her upsweep is all a frazzle, and I’m not sure it’s all because of the wind, though the winds don’t seem to be givin’ up. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the winds were increasin’. But that’s not possible in Brethren, is it? What, with all booms and mills and extra precautions. I swallow ’earin’ another low howl rumble around us. At least I ’ope that’s just the wind.
“Yeah,” I say. “Urlick was standin’ ‘ere, and Eyelet was there.” I spin meself around, pointin’ the spots out. “I was over there. And you was there over ‘ere.”
“And Flossie was…?” Livinea tilts ’er ’ead.
The winds pick up again, tossin’ aside Livinea’s hair and flingin’ open the sides of me vest. I look up, spottin’ the silhouette of a ghoul-like figure slippin’ through the trees.
Livinea stares over at me, lookin’ a bit like a ghoul ’erself. “You don’t suppose she’s—” Livinea gulps.
The treetops nearest our ’eads shiver. I’m wary of the sudden ink-blot shade of the skies. A cold, hollow feelin’ shuttles down the length of me spine.
“Come, on.” I whirl Livinea around. I don’t want to frighten ’er, so I don’t tell ‘er what I’m thinkin’. “We’ll come and search again tomorrow.” I shuttle ’er out the gates. “When the sky’s a more friendly colour.”
I lock it behind us and ’urry away, trippin over somethin’ in me haste, but I’m so frazzled I don’t even look down. Glancing back over me shoulder, I realize me mistake.
I sense a sudden whoosh of a hand.
Chapter Eight
Urlick
THE ALCHEMIST SHOOS everyone from the room, all except me. I’m allowed to stay, but only until Eyelet falls asleep.
“Here,” the alchemist whispers, as the last of the group shuffles past him. We stand in the middle of the laboratory, bathed in a dim cone of aether-light. His shoulders are shrouded by the shadows behind him, his back U-ed. The virile body that had danced about the basement laboratory just moments before has shrunken back to its former decrepit state. He leans heavily on his wormwood staff. His head cruelly hangs.
The hue of his eyes has dimmed from amber to murky moss green. “You’ll need this, where you’re going.” He presses a small leather pouch into my open hand.
“What is it?” I look down. The pouch is similar to the one he struggled to open during the making of the ultraviolet aether bulb. The top of the bag is sealed, just like the last one, and trimmed in golden embroidery. The pattern matches the one on the lapels of his robe. “What’s this for?” I say, noting the leather sides are tooled with some message I cannot comprehend.
“You will know when it is time.” He nods and turns to leave.
“Wait!” I reach out, tugging him by the sleeve. “What’s in it?”
The alchemist turns. “Eternity,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. In time.” He turns to retrieve his cloak from a chair, and floats toward the door at great speed.
I chase after him. “Why can’t you just explain? Why all this strange riddling?” My voice slips into anger, though I don’t mean for it to.
The alchemist hesitates. “Even if I told you, you’d never believe me.” He hilts his brows and dons his cloak.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The corners of his lips curl into a wry, all-knowing smile. “There are no shortcuts in this world, son. I would have thought you’d learnt that lesson by now.” He stares deep into my eyes, and, oddly, I feel his presence invade my soul.
He pushes past me out into the hallway, and clutches the handrail to the stairs. “One must live every moment of one’s own journey. No one else can take that journey for them.” His eyes fall to the pouch in my hand. “But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” He turns his back and descends the stairs. “Keep it with you, always. Never let it out of your sight.”
“But wait!” I scuttle after him, but he is already charging down the stairs and I can’t seem to keep up with the speed he treads. “Why me?” I shout after him.
“You seek answers that must be lived, not given.” He continues away from me.
“And you talk knots that need unravelling.”
He reaches the landing and turns. “You needn’t worry, son. At exactly the right time, the pouch will reveal its purpose. Just as we all do.” He winks. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He turns his back and floats along the basement hallway toward the outer door.
“Wait! Where are you going?” I chase after him.
“My work is finished here. It is time for me to leave.”
“Wait! Please! At least let me arrange an escort for you, after all you’ve done.”
“No need.” He waves the thought away and hurries on.
“But where will you go? It’s already dark and... and…the people. They’re full of hatred for you. They could bring you serious harm.”
“Do not worry, son.” He hesitates at the end of the long, dark hallway, adjusting the hood of his frock up over his head, concealing his eyes in the same way they were when we first met. “No harm can ever come to me.” He reaches for the door.
“Wait!” I race toward him. “May I at least know your name?”
Slowly he turns, his eyes two beams of amber light. “Thale,” he says, then thrusts open the door. A searing light blinds me momentarily. Wind and rain rush in.
I race to where he ought to be standing but isn’t, and lean out the door, my hands straddling the frame. Heavy wind and rain pelt my face. “Thale!” I shout into the storming darkness. “Thale?”
Through the streaming rain, I see a flicker of crimson in the tree line. A robe falls to the forest floor in a puddle of red. A flash of gold rises up from the puddle and dances off the wind—like a pulled piece of embroidery thread.
Chapter Nine
Urlick
“SIR?” THE DOOR TO Eyelet’s room creaks slowly open. A guard pokes his head inside.
“Yes,” I snap.
“There’s something you should see.”
“What?” I swing around. “Didn’t C.L. let everyone know I wasn’t to be disturbed?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but this is no ordinary storm. We have Vapours registering.”
“We have what?” I snap up, knocking the chair over behind me. I race past him, out of the room, down the stairs and to the end of the basement hallway, where the barometer gauges are.
I tap the glass on the gauge and shake my head, then tap the second one. “This can’t be happening.”
“I’m afraid it is, sir. And it’s been steadily rising ever since the ceremony. Just a small taint at first, but now—”
“Eighteen parts per million?” I turn my eyes from the gauge to him. “Has this ever happened before?”
“No, sir.” He gulps. “The scrubbers and windmills have always prevented it.”
“Something is wrong. Very wrong.” I lunge from the gauges to a nearby port-hole window, looking out over the back courtyard. Thick, black threads swirl through the cloud cover amid the wind and rain.
“It appears the purification unit has been tampered with, sir,” the guard says.
“What?” I spin to face him. “But how? By whom?”
“No one’s sure, sir, but”—he hesitates and clears his throat— “it appears perhaps by entities that recently gained illegal entry to Brethren.”
“Flossie.” I breathe the word through my teeth. “Damn that Penelope.” I slam a fist to the window. The guard jumps. “She had no idea what she was dealing with. She’s let a force into Brethren that will be a nightmare to eradicate.”
The guard swallows hard.
“Are all the windmills inoperable?”
“Just the ones on the forest side overlooking Gears, sir.”
“So the ones protecting us most from encroaching Vapours then.”
“
Yes. I’m afraid so, sir.”
I turn heel and race up the hallway toward the outside door.
“Where you going, sir?” the guard shouts after me.
“To save my people.”
The guard chases after me, his heavy boots clomping stone.
“Is there a place underground where the people could go?” I call back to him over my shoulder.
“Aye, sir. There’s a bunker underneath the city; a lead-lined shelter built under the Town Hall. The former Ruler had it erected for just such an occasion.”
“So he suspected this would happen one day, did he?”
“Aye, sir. He was most afraid of it occurring. Had us checking the gauges all the time.”
“The mastermind behind it all. Of course he did.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s called the Worry Room.”
“How apropos. How many people does it hold?”
“He claimed it was intended to house the whole city, sir, but we’ve never really had to test it.”
“Is there anywhere else you can think of for them to go?”
“There are the catacombs up at the Academy. And the private rooms here—lead lined, underground.”
“Fine, we’ll use all of them. I’ll start the evacuation. In the meantime,”—I grab for a gasmask, then reach for the basement door, my hands landing firm on the trip bar— “deliver the people a directive in my absence. Inform them they are to evacuate the city at once. Direct them to the bunkers and the catacombs. Any overflow can be brought here to my private rooms.” I deactivate the seal on the castle door. There’s a whir and a hiss of steam.
“But, sir.” The guard panics. “You mustn’t, sir!”
I tear off my ascot, wrap it around my nose and throat, then pump open the door and step out into the raging wind. “Someone has to go see what’s happening.”
“But, sir! It’s too dangerous!”
I punt across the courtyard toward the stables, the guard’s voice trailing off behind me, slowly dissipating into the wind.
I round the stables, free Clementine from her stall, and slip her bridle on over her nose. Forgoing the saddle, I hoist myself aboard and dig my heels into her sides. We gallop across the moors, cutting a swath through the raging, swirling, white-blinding storm. Rain pelts off our faces. Vapour threads through the air.
I must do right by my people, but it’ll mean nothing if I’m lost out here. My mind drifts to Eyelet, lying asleep, unaware of any of this. I’ve got to check out the perimeter and get myself back before she wakes. If she finds out what I’ve done, she’ll be furious.
“Hyah!” I lean forward, urging Clementine on. Her hooves thunder over the mucky terrain, tearing up the earth in our wake as we make our way to the outskirts of Brethren. At the top of the mount, just above the checkpoint to Gears, I pull her to a sliding stop, the muck curling beneath her hooves. She whinnies and snorts, throwing her head. Her chest is coated in sweat, and her withers tremble. Even she sees the danger.
“What is it girl? What do you smell?”
She stomps her feet and turns her head away as a great chunk of black wind sails across the border.
The storm lulls just long enough for me to see the problem. The windmills are spinning at full force, squeaking, squalling, labouring, yet nothing’s happening. A twisting trail of black seeps between them. The scrubbers wheeze. Their decontamination fingerlets have been stripped. They pump faster than they ever have before. Like giant sets of gasping bellows, they fight to keep up. They’re pumping so hard, they’re steaming. Next to them, the purification booms puff and gasp as if they’re about to collapse. The force field below them glows an angry shade of red. Signals blink wildly, indicating the invasion of Vapours.
The Vapours are somehow overwhelming the entire system—a system that has never failed.
Donning the gasmask, I urge Clementine to gallop closer for better inspection, riding along the ridge of the city overlooking the dipping terrain of Gears.
Cords to the main arteries of the mills have all been cut. They hang dangling in the air when I get closer. Not sliced clean through, but gnawed at, as if bitten.
“Sabotage,” I whisper. “She’s sabotaged us. Flossie and her band of merry idiots. This must be their work.” Clementine grows antsy beneath me.
I trot the length of the dancing fence line, noting several large gaping holes. The mills above them have all been robbed of their charcoal filters and rubber backings. They flop and fling with every awkward rotation.
“No wonder Vapour is getting in.”
I stare up at the damage to the mills, the winds picking up, throwing back my hair in a gust. A curling wisp of black-grey smoke threads thinly through the booms. It coils up the hillside toward me like a slow, slithering eel. As it draws near, I reach out and pinch its strangely thick and oily consistency between my fingers, pulling a shred of it toward my lips.
It tastes metallic, like oily copper on my tongue...with an arsenic aftertaste.
There’s no mistaking it. Vapour.
I turn my head and spit its vulgar taste from my mouth. Somehow, they’re getting through. I squint at the darkening horizon shifting beyond the grime of Gears. Something’s very wrong. The Vapours are not due to rise again for another full cycle of the moon. There are forces at play here that don’t make sense.
Clementine’s ears prick. She senses something. She prances, impatient to leave. Another great gust of wind hits us. I choke and sputter, despite the mask. Clementine whinnies and leaps to a panicked, hind-legged stand.
I whirl her around when she lands, jab my heels in her sides, and ride for the castle as fast as I can.
Chapter Ten
Flossie
The winds pick up, tussling my frazzled hair, blowing me back a pace or two. I dig in my tentacles and try to hold myself steady, as do my worshipers, but it’s impossible. This wind has a mind of its own.
I squeal aloud as I clap into a rock.
Several of my other worshipers follow suit. Tossed around like so much rubbish.
The wind’s never been this strong before.
They cry out as they tumble, snagging on the branches of low-lying bushes and become tangled in trees, yelping and squawking as their willowy bodies are flung about like drapery.
I clasp hold of the sides of two trees, struggling to anchor my position, and shut my eyes against the wind’s sooty, gritty consistency. Bits of bone collect in my teeth.
This is no ordinary wind.
It howls and bays sardonically, ripe with the voices of dead. Or undead.
I gulp and raise a brow.
There’s an old legend I learned as a child. A haunting story grownups told when too much ale sploshed about in their gullets. The story of the Wind Men. Criminals left for dead in the forest, who were consumed by the wind and spat back out as Bone Men to spend eternity seeking revenge on the living. It is said their spirits were swallowed by the wind, in which their screams are heard forever.
Could this be what I’m hearing? Another harrowing howl reverberates through the trees. The revenge of the Bone Men? I swallow.
Wait a minute. What do I care? I’m not exactly living.
I primp my hair and guffaw at the wind. It takes another shot at me, knocking me squarely on my arse.
Looking back, I realize the wind is not a normal wind indeed. It comes up from Embers. It’s spindly, sooty, wraith-like fingers rise up in waves over the ravine’s edge. Normally, the wind rolls down over the escarpment. They don’t fester upwards.
This is worse than strange.
I reach out, trapping a dark thread wriggling through the wind by the tail and taste it, then quickly spit it back out. Its vile, acrid, arsenic flavour pierces my tongue.
The Vapours. They’ve grown restless. Time to ravish again. I twist my head, staring at their encroaching black, toxic threads.
But why so soon?
The Vapours usually roll like cloc
kwork in a six-month moon cycles, no one knows why. But it’s not even been a month since their last ugly rearing. At the most, two.
Could it be, they are rising and falling whenever they feel like it now? The thought of that shudders through me.
I must act fast. I’ll not withstand another Vapour storm, not in this condition. I look down at my fast transforming, holey self.
A good dose of the Vapours and I’ll finish Turning for sure.
Another gust of wind brings a toxic clot which causes me to cough and choke.
That’s strange.
I’ve never been affected by the presence of Vapours in the air before.
The wind tugs at me, flapping wide my cheeks, and caressing my breasts. Its flirtatious fingers thread through my hair. I sway in time with its intoxicating dance, spiralling off into a soothing, warm sleep.
“No.” I snap out of it. “No, no, no, no, no! Get away!” Shaking my head, I pluck its gnarly fingers from my skin and toss them aside.
The wind laughs at me. It grasps at me again.
“Leave me alone!” I slap down its groping hands.
Then, as if called by something, it draws back its breath, and mysteriously I’m let go. I stumble face-forward into a bramble brush, palms slamming hard against the ground, and look past the whirling tail of the wind into the dark and murk-curdled sky. Something’s not right here.
Where have the clouds gone? I squint. Why have they parted? There’s a tear right through the centre of them. I gulp down the pancake of fear that gloms my throat.
“Whatever this is, it’s not right.”
I pop to a sit and squint harder, trying to see what I saw before. Where is the land? The floating plots of land. My heart strums. The ones I saw before. The ones that appeared the last time the sky split?
Or perhaps I just imagined them.
The tear in the sky pulls shut behind a swath of black, and the forest goes momentarily black.
I gulp, then shout, “Disciples!”
My worshippers drop from the trees, their billowy bodies pulling loose from the clutches of branches they have been caught up in. They slide back to earth and reassemble, screwing back on their empty, worm-holed heads. They assemble before me like an army—an army of idiots—and fall to their knees. They bow their torn-parchment-paper heads. I look around, noticing a good half of them missing.
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