by P. J. Sky
Ari scrunched up her face. “Fine. It’s on your head though, we ain’t ‘ere for this sister.”
Ari passed the canteen back to the old man who clasped it and continued to drink. Finally, he stopped and handed the canteen back to Starla. There was still plenty left, as if his birdlike gulps had barely touched it.
“Than’ ya,” said the old man.
Starla slipped the canteen back over her shoulder. Ari glared at her and gently shook her head.
“You’re welcome,” said Starla. “What are you doing here?”
To Starla, the old man seemed kind and honest. He was weak and thirsty and now wore the sad grin that only comes from having lost all your teeth. His pale eyes smiled.
The old man shrugged. “Lif ‘ere I does.”
“In there?” asked Ari, pointing towards the collapsed platform.
The old man looked at her and nodded.
“What is this place?” asked Starla.
“Is ol’, li’ me,” said the old man. “I’s too ol’ to go on. Stay ‘ere now. He loo’ after me.”
“Who’s he?”
The old man pointed at the metal platform.
“Is someone else there?”
The old man shook his head. “Jus me. Me an’ my shell.” He smiled at her. “Fol’ build ‘im, lon’ ago. Gone now they are. Town dead, all dead, ‘cept me. An’ I, well, fol’ gone before I finds ‘im. But I says ‘ere now. Thoughts I’s be dead by now, but Maka, he go’ other plan I guess.”
“Why did the town die?”
The old man shrugged. “Maka, he know, bu’ Maka no’ says. People go ba’ to the earth, li’ me soon.”
Ari sighed. She reached in her bag, pulled out some of the dried meat, and threw it to him.
The old man nodded to her and smiled. “Than’ ya.”
“Whatever,” said Ari. “Come on sister, we ain’t got time for none of this.”
The man didn’t seem to take offence. He just smiled and nodded again at them, and so they left him there, knelt on the ground and smiling. Starla turned away, and when she looked back he was gone, as if, as she’d suspected he would, he’d crumbled back into the red dust.
Chapter 16
The black aircraft flew low, tracing the full length of the ancient road between the city and Cooper. It passed by long camel trains, animals all roped together, and donkeys and carts laden with salt and ore one way and grain and weapons and whatever else the city could trade the other. On the busy road people stopped to look up. It was rare to see an aircraft from the city.
Later, just outside Cooper, the aircraft reappeared and landed by an abandoned van. The rear doors lay open; its wheels were removed. Max Panache and two guards descended from the aircraft’s belly and began to fan out.
Max paused. He sniffed the air. Cooper, the town was coming in down wind. It smelt worse than a dead kangaroo.
∆∆∆
All afternoon, they followed the line of crooked metal poles until they ended abruptly in the middle of a desolate plain. On the horizon, a ridge of rocks and some dark shapes shimmered in the haze. Closer, the dark shapes formed a line of sparsely leaved gumtrees that reached jaggedly upwards.
At dusk they reached the tree line. They set up camp among the white barks and for the first time they built a fire. In the half-light, Ari disappeared off among the bare trees. Starla moved closer to the fire, soothed by the warm glow. When Ari returned, she presented Starla with what looked like small, knobbly lumps of wood.
“What’s this?” asked Starla.
“That’s a bush coconut.”
Starla rolled it between her fingers. “What do you do with it?”
“Ya eat it.”
Ari took back the fruit. Using her blade, she split it open to expose its milky white heart. In the middle was a fleshy bit of slime which Starla thought she saw move.
“What’s that in the middle?”
“That’ll be the grub,” said Ari.
“The grub?”
“Ya know, baby insect. He lives in it.”
Starla grimaced.
Ari smiled. “Ya wanna try ‘im?”
Starla shook her head.
Ari winked. Between two fingers, she plucked up the gooey creature and popped it in her mouth. “He’s good,” she said, chewing. “Sweet.”
As it grew darker, they moved closer to the fire, and somewhere, far away, the dingoes began to howl.
“We should be right tonight,” said Ari. “We got a fire; we’re in the trees. I reckon they won’t come too near.”
They slept between the trees and Starla once more dreamt of her father. In the dream, she was much younger. Her father sat at a long table in his office and looked down at her as she approached. Agrippa Panache sat opposite him.
“Where is Max?” she asked. “He wasn’t at school.”
Agrippa avoided her gaze.
Her father stroked his chin. “Max has been moved to another school. You won’t see him anymore. Now run along my dear. You should be asleep.”
“But where is he?” She knew it was important.
Her father grew stern. “My dear, you should be asleep. Now run along and don’t worry about such things. We’re very busy, we don’t have time for this.”
The room slid away. She was out in the corridor and the corridor was growing longer and longer with more and more doors on either side. She was running down it, trying the doors, but every one she tried was locked. Finally, she fell through one and found herself on the outer side of the city wall. She spun around, intending to turn back, but there was nothing but opaque wall. The doorway was gone. The wall towered above her and stretched out impenetrably on either side. Her heart began to race. She beat her fists against the wall, screaming as loudly as she could. “Let me back, let me back.” She beat the wall until her fists hurt and all her energy was exhausted. Finally, she collapsed onto the dusty ground, leaned against the wall, and clasped her head in her hands. Her body shivered and she could feel a cold sweat coming on. When she awakened, she was still shivering.
It was dark, the fire was now just a few cold embers, and briefly Starla thought she heard that same low warbling sound she’d heard back at the rocks. She strained her ears but the sound was gone. Looking up, she caught sight of Velle Stella, blinking between the branches. Then the shadows of the bare trees closed in and the world felt slightly less empty.
∆∆∆
“But why can’t I go there?” Starla had protested. “I want to go.”
Starla got everything else she wanted so why not this?
She’d stood on tiptoe and clasped the railing, her gaze affixed beyond the city wall. The barren wasteland stretched to the horizon, a place of infinite possibility and adventure.
Her father looked down at her and sighed. “My dear, why do you think we built the wall?”
Starla furrowed her brow. “I don’t know.”
“Come my dear, you must have some ideas.”
“Because… I don’t know. Because it’s stupid.”
Her father was being stubborn and she’d hated him for it. She’d angered when her teacher had evaded the same question. Why couldn’t she visit the lands beyond the wall? Her classmates had looked on her with horror while her teachers had cowered. They always did when she confronted them. Other children were disciplined, but she was carefully dispatched home. After all, she was the mayor’s daughter.
“What if I told you the wall was built for your protection?”
Starla tightened her grip on the railing. “Was it?”
“It was.”
Starla examined the long line of steel balustrades and concrete ramparts, guard towers faced inwards. “So what are we being protected from?”
“Many things. For one, the people beyond the wall. Yes, there are contagions to consider, but beyond that, we’ve worked hard to build this city. Brick by brick and stone by stone, we built this city and everything in it and it belongs to us. But out there, beyond the wall, there
are a lot of jealous people.”
“Why can’t they come here?”
“Because they don’t want to come to the city, they want to take it from us. They cannot understand our way of life so they seek to destroy it. If they were to come here, they would destroy us.”
Starla’s eyes traced the spindle like steel towers. They looked delicate against the wall and the vast world beyond. “So that’s why we built the wall? To stop them destroying the city?”
“Yes.”
Starla leant her chin against the railing. None of this really explained her first question.
“But why can’t I visit the outside?”
“Because, my dear, nothing is as simple as all that. We must lead by example. You see, as much as we are protecting the city from those on the outside, we are also protecting it from those on the inside. The city doesn’t just belong to us, we also belong to the city. It is our duty to stay. But sometimes, people in the city can forget how important the city is. They forget how hard our predecessors fought to build this place. This city was hard won. And this is where we belong now, working together, safeguarding this way of life from those that might take it from us. We should always remember that, and the wall is a useful reminder. We should not concern ourselves with the outside world. For us, all we see beyond the wall is foreign, it is not our concern. Out there, if they wanted to, those on the outside could build cities just like ours. But they choose not to, and that says plenty about why they do not belong here. So my dear, don’t trouble yourself with what is beyond the wall. It is not your place. You belong here in the city. And one day, when you’re older, you will realise you don’t even want to visit the lands beyond the wall. One day, it will not even cross your mind to think of them.”
“But what if I still want to visit them?”
Her father’s eyes had narrowed. “Then my dear, there is always exile.”
Chapter 17
With dawn, they moved on, deeper into the barren woodland. It seemed the further they went, the larger the trees.
“What is this place?” asked Starla.
“Old folks always called it the bush. We’re gettin’ closer to the swamp see. There’s water near. That’s why there’s trees.”
“Most of these trees look dead though.”
The trunks were bleached a ghostly white, and only the smallest green leaves clung to their upper branches.
“Well, I think they’s just pretendin’,” said Ari. “In this country, nothin’ wrong with playin’ dead sometimes. Playin’ dead could save ya life.”
This whole land is playing dead, thought Starla. Whatever happened here, it happened long ago. This was a place the world had forgotten.
Back in the city, the glass-covered gardens were full of trees. Great trees, with rich brown trunks and large, green leaves. Around them grew plants with colourful and heavily fragranced flowers. Little birds and butterflies fluttered between the branches and everything was alive. These trees were not the trees of the city. This was the forest of the dead.
Sometime later, Starla thought she heard a rushing sound like that of running water. It filtered between the bare trunks, gradually growing in intensity. Then the landscape broke, falling away at their feet into a broad crescent shaped valley. Below, fast moving water glittered in the sunlight, flanked by huge rocks and ghostly gumtrees. In the distance, a dense forest of vibrant green assaulted the landscape.
Starla looked down at the river, running fast and clear, and fought the compulsion to leap off the rocks and dive down beneath its fresh and cleansing waves.
“We go down there,” said Ari, and pointed far below into the valley. “An’ we follow the water almost all the way to Alice. At the end of the river is a dam an’ then there’s the city.”
“So we’re close?”
“Well, closer.”
At the thought of heading towards the water, Starla inwardly grinned. Perhaps she could swim in the river and finally feel cool and clean?
Gingerly, they made their way down the face of the gorge. Deep shadows formed pools of alluring shade that were almost as enticing as the running water. A fresh breeze came up off the river and Starla found herself wondering why anyone would live anywhere else but here. It was truly beautiful. She'd seen no place closer to those she’d spied in the backgrounds of paintings in the city archives. Perhaps, she wondered, such places do exist.
Her boot slipped on a loose rock and Starla almost lost her footing. She stopped and watched the rocks tumble all the way to the frothy water at the bottom. Looking down, she felt dizzy.
“Careful,” said Ari, going ahead. “Ya fall in, I ain’t gettin’ ya out.”
Then the path gave way, and Ari with it.
Starla could only watch as Ari tumbled down towards the frothy depths.
∆∆∆
Ari’s lungs contracted. In the darkness, tumbling beneath the waves, she lost all sense of direction. Desperately she clawed, and the heavy water dragged through her fingers.
She struck a rock hard, then the water grabbed her and pulled her onwards. Her head broke the surface and she gasped, then the current pulled her under again.
Her heart thumped against her breastbone and a red heat rose in her gut.
I can’t swim.
She thrashed her arms. Over and over she tumbled. Her hand broke the surface of the water and was washed down again.
I might die.
With her hands and feet, she searched for anything with which she could take hold. A sharp object scrapped painfully against her palm and was gone. Her head bobbed to the surface. A flash of colour, a mouthful of air and water, and she was dragged under again.
Darkness. She screamed into the water.
Her body thumped against something hard and round and, as she began to drag around it, she reached around and hugged it. Her head breached the surface and she gasped. Roaring, the frozen water dragged at her limbs. The surface of the rock was smooth and slippery and she clung tighter.
She was out in the middle of the river. The cold water stung her face; from below her chin, the rest of her body was going numb under the water.
Ari searched for Starla. The imposing rock face loomed above. The narrow shoreline looked far away. “Starla,” she cried, her voice lost in the surging din.
Has she fallen too? Is she drowning somewhere further back or further down the river? Each way she looked, she saw only the chopping grey waves and further on a thin mist.
Water. First you’ve not enough, then you’ve got too much.
She tried to pull herself further up the rock but she only slipped further down. She leaned her head back, keeping her mouth above the surface. She took in a mouthful of water and choked. Her jaw chattered, her limbs numb. Her joints were starting to burn and the water was ceaselessly pulling at her and she knew it wouldn’t stop.
Oh please she prayed, Maker don’t let me die here. Don’t let this be it.
She couldn’t feel her fingers.
Her hands slipped and she was pulled back under.
∆∆∆
Starla watched Ari disappear beneath the waves. Her skin started to tingle.
“Ari,” she cried out to the water below.
She scanned the water down river and saw nothing but choppy grey waves in a thin mist.
She can’t be gone, she can’t be.
Ari, don’t leave me.
Her hands started to tremble.
Down river, Starla saw Ari’s head emerge. Ari looked like she was struggling, trying to stay afloat. Then she disappeared beneath the waves.
Starla knew it in an instant. Ari can’t swim.
And the water’s moving fast, she thought, I’ll never make it down to the riverbank in time.
There was no other way. Time was running out and if she was to act it had to be now.
Starla leapt off the side of the gorge.
∆∆∆
Starla struck the water hard and instantly her bones ached. Pain bubbled up i
n her chest as if, briefly, the cold shock had stopped her heart. Then she was rising to the surface, slowly exhaling. Holding out her arms, her head bobbed above the water and her feet scraped the riverbed.
I’m lucky I didn’t strike it when I landed, she thought.
The current took her quickly down river.
Starla remembered the rivers and lakes of the city. In the hottest summer months, the population flocked to their soft, cool waters and long, sandy beaches. This was nothing like that. This water clawed at Starla and tugged her along with it. It was all her efforts to keep her head above the surface and she let her body flow with the fast movement of the current.
Ahead, she saw Ari raise her head. Starla pulled at the water, trying to manoeuvre herself. It was easier to grab or kick rocks at the bottom than to fight the current.
Come on Ari, she told herself, grab hold of something. You have to stop moving else I’ll never catch up.
She spat out a mouthful of water. The chill hurt her gums.
“Ari,” she cried out.
The water howled.
Ari, whatever you do, don’t drown. Don’t leave me here, lost and alone, but also, don’t drown.
Finally, she spotted Ari on the surface. She was out in the middle of the river, clinging to a rock, and Starla was heading straight for her.
∆∆∆
Starla struck the rock and gripped hold of its smooth surface. Her blue fingers had started to wrinkle. She dug her boots into the riverbed and battled the current.
Ari had her arms wrapped around the rock while her body was flowing away with the current. Her head was barely above the water and she was gasping and coughing. Not too much further on, the river was flowing over the edge of a waterfall.
“Ari,” cried Starla over the din of the water. She put her arm under Ari’s shoulders and tried to steady her. “Put your legs down.”
Ari gasped desperately. “What?” she managed, choking on water.
“Your legs, put them down.”
“I can’t”
“You can. It’s not deep.”
Fighting the current, Ari managed to get her feet down and she pulled herself a little out of the water. “I can’t swim.”
