Skylark Page 10

  I jerked away, wrenching my ankle as I scrambled to my feet. Dropping my half-eaten tomato, I bolted.

  The hum and whir of the machinery grew fainter until I had to pause for breath, and I looked over my shoulder. The machine was still where I’d left it, its hands all sagging, scrabbling in the dirt. Searching for me, and that familiar jolt of magic. I slowed to a rapid walk, trying desperately to calm the terrified gallop of my heartbeat. I limped on my twisted ankle until I could no longer hear the machine behind me, and came out of the garden onto a city block once more.

  This, however, was like no part of the city I’d ever seen. It lay in ruins, no building standing higher than a few stories. Hollowed out, tarnished, most of them barely more than rubble, I felt as though I had stepped forward a thousand years into the future. Humans were little more than memory.

  This must be the part we abandoned during the wars, I realized. It had been only a hundred years. How had it gone so quickly?

  Large portions of the street were caved in, and whole buildings had fallen into the sinkholes. The soil here was a thick, red, soggy clay that looked like it couldn’t possibly support life—and yet, plants had clearly taken hold of the city.

  Thick undergrowth had pushed through the cracked streets. There was no way around it, so I tried to find a path over the portions of the street that were most intact and still preventing the brush from growing. I passed what had once been a storefront of some kind, some of its glass window still improbably intact. Through it I could see part of a tree trunk, far larger than the spindly things we got inside the Wall. I tilted my head back and saw a canopy of leafy green spreading beyond where the roof of the building had once been. Suddenly it wasn’t a shop with a tree growing inside—it was a tree with the remains of a building still clinging to it.

  Here and there ancient walkers still stood, frozen, overgrown with vines and moss. I began to notice other abandoned machines, carriages and street cleaners, even the occasional mechanimal. I scraped away the overgrown vines on one lump to see the copper-sculpted, expressive face of a cat peering out of the undergrowth. I’d only seen pictures in books before. It was still crouched, tail erect, as though about to pounce on an invisible toy.

  The sky overhead was growing mottled, gray-on-gray patterns becoming visible. I thought perhaps that meant the clouds were clearing. I could more easily see the bright spot of the sun, bright enough that I couldn’t look at it for more than a minute. It was well past the zenith now, and I tried to imagine the sun disc’s perfectly measured gradations to tell the time. Perhaps one, two o’ clock? But past midnight, in the city. Exhaustion dragged at my feet.

  The river was not far away, and between the buildings I caught glimpses of an old bridge and knew it was my way across. When I reached it, though, I found that it was a lot less intact than it had looked from a distance. It had once conveyed the Resource-powered carriages and cycles across the river but now I wasn’t sure it would hold me. The metal skeleton of it was still standing, and chunks of its rotting stone body still clung to it, but there were large, gaping holes. Marking the beginning of it were two massive bronze statues, so corroded and overgrown I could not identify them. One outstretched limb resembled a hoof—perhaps they had been horses, once.

  Trying not to think about how firmly the remaining pieces were attached, I set out across the bridge. I had never learned to swim. No one in the city could; why bother? I tried not to look down, when my path took me close enough to the gaps that the water was visible below. It was a wide, sluggish river, but no less deadly. If I fell, I would drown. That is, if the fall itself didn’t kill me.

  Stone and concrete crumbled into the water as I stepped. The river was too far away for me to hear the splash. I had still not grown accustomed to the quiet. My ears yearned for any familiar sound. The clamor of the hateful artificial sunrise would have been welcome.

  The far side of the river was lined with trees, and I could see them stretching away to the south before the horizon was lost in the mist. This must be the forest the Renewable had mentioned. I was to continue south through it until I found birds. I tried to imagine the sight of a bird, something I’d only ever seen in pictures, but couldn’t give the image life. My birds stayed flat, two-dimensional in my mind. Like paper.

  I reached the other side of the crumbling bridge, distracted by my imagination enough that it took me a few moments to register the faint hum of magic.

  I could hear no clockwork, and usually the gears and mechanisms were louder than the magic that powered them. I shifted my pack and moved as quietly as I could toward the sound.

  As I rounded a massive pile of plant-covered debris that had once been a building, I found the source of the sound. It was like a miniature version of the Wall, only instead of tarnished pewter, it had the same violet sheen of energy that characterized the Wall from the inside. I drew back and stared.

  Though I stayed for what felt like the better part of an hour, nothing came in or out of the bubble. The Institute had theorized that when the remnants of magic settled after the wars, they did so unevenly. They told us that while the vast majority of the landscape was barren of magic, there were little clumps of highly concentrated power, far more concentrated than the uniform fabric of magic had been before the wars.

  This was what they’d sent my brother to find. I couldn’t help but wonder if Basil had made it this far.

  I crept closer, my skin prickling, alert. All was still, but for the hum of the magic and the flicker of energy across the intangible surface of the dome. I estimated it to be no more than two hundred yards in diameter.

  I reached for it, stopping with my palm about half an inch from its surface. The hairs stood up along my arms as if a static charge was about to go off. I stooped and plucked a blade of grass, and then dipped the tip of it into the gently twisting pool of energy. Back home, the Wall was one-way. You could poke things out of it, but when you tried to pull them back in, it would shave off whatever was left outside.

  I withdrew the blade of grass. Completely intact. The piece of grass wasn’t even warm to the touch.

  A faint sound interrupted my inspection. It was either very far away or very quiet, a thin, buzzing whine that rose above the magical thrum that was all around me now.

  Pixies. How had these survived outside the Wall when the others had died instantly? And if I was hearing them so clearly, they could not be far—

  A cluster of them rounded the debris pile and screamed straight at me in precise formation. I dropped to the ground, curling into a ball.

  I expected to feel them ricocheting off my head and arms, whining mad triumph at having located me. Instead, their buzzing took on a strange, meandering note. Cautiously, I lifted my head.

  They were flying in disarray, meandering around the bubble, jerking and spinning. Pixies were designed to track magic. I could only guess that this pocket, this superconcentrated magical field, was camouflaging me.

  I had never had an opportunity to observe pixies flying for any length of time. They flew gracefully even when confused, their hum quiet and jangling when not aggravated into a fullthrottled screaming whine. The knot of magic at their core, powering them, gave off a faint, golden glow that set the edges of their copper bodies afire.

  As I stared, I realized that one of them was different: easily twice the size of the others, for one thing, and giving off a much brighter glow.

  A queen pixie? No, more like . . . a general, marshaling its forces. Maybe it had something to do with why these pixies hadn’t died like the others outside the Wall.

  It had stopped its meandering and was hovering in place, darting side to side—as though it were thinking. And then, with great deliberation, it opened its eyes.

  Unlike its sightless troops—and all the other pixies I’d seen—this one had tiny, jewel-like, multifaceted spheres affixed to its head. They shone with shocking azure-blue clarity.

  The copper lids blinked once with mechanical precision, and th
en the bug turned in a slow semicircle—until it was facing me.

  The lids blinked shut. When they opened, the faceted eyes had changed to angry red-violet. The general gave a shrill, whistlelike buzz, and at once the other pixies stopped their confused stumbling and formed up behind it.

  I barely had time to register that they’d seen me. Another thrum, this one low and constant, and the whole formation darted directly at my face.

  I had no choice. I threw myself backward into the magical barrier.

  Again, there was no pain or resistance. Less concerned this time with impending death, I noticed that the sensation of static charge grew unbearably intense as I passed through, but as soon as I was on the other side, the sensation vanished.

  Ahead of me I saw the barrier from the inside, exactly as it had been on the outside, a violet, flickering dome of energy. I could not see through it but for the occasional hint of a tiny shadow, swooping close and darting away into invisibility. I could hear, very faintly, the sound of their clockwork fury as they tried, and failed, to understand where I had gone. I flinched every time I saw a shadow or heard that whine, but soon they slowed, and then ceased.

  I was safe.

  A prickling sensation on the back of my neck prompted me to turn around. Where was I safe?

  I had expected it to look like the ruins of the city outside. Instead, a deep, thick, twisted forest lay before me. All was silent, but for the distant sound of water trickling somewhere.

  Huge, ancient trees clogged the area, twisted in their age. Yellow-green tendrils of moss draped from huge, low-hanging branches that seemed to reach for me. Gnarly roots made the ground more treacherous than the worst of the ruins. No sign, not even a moss-covered mailbox, that there had ever been a city here.

  I pushed up onto my knees, gazing around. Though it was only a few hours past midday outside, the tiny amount of light that made it through the barrier left the forest in dim, violet twilight.

  Something flickered in my vision, like bright light seen through wet eyelashes. I turned my head slowly until it flashed again, iridescence that sent an electric tingle through my body. Magic. The place was full of it. Pale stone caught my eye, and I got to my feet to move closer. The study of rock and earth was one of many disciplines that had been lost since the wars, but this rock I knew: limestone.

  Natural crystal was by far the best substance at capturing and storing magical energy, and even manmade crystals could serve, as they did in the Institute. Certain other natural stones, particularly limestone, could work the same way, though limestone was so inefficient that it was useless for practical purposes. I reached out to the bit of exposed stone and felt a jolt of energy leap up my arm, intense enough to make it fall to my side, numb, for a few seconds.

  Well, I guess that explains why the magic is concentrated here, I thought, rubbing my arm, legs wobbling a bit.

  A thin, musical call pierced the silence. A brief quiet followed, and then came an answering call from another part of the jungle. The forest had quieted at my entrance, and had now decided I was no threat. The place suddenly burst into life.

  An insane cacophony of sound assaulted my ears and it took me long moments to understand what I was hearing. Animals. Whoops and cries and calls for which I had no name split the air, some shrieking, some musical. I moved slowly, the moss underfoot muffling my steps. Droplets of dew glinted darkly in the violet half-light, and everywhere was the rich, dark, wild smell of dirt and wet and life.

  I passed a tree full of unidentifiable fruit, and I plucked a piece from the branches. I had no idea if it was edible, but I peeled away a strip of skin with my thumbnail. It had pale, yellow-gold flesh that smelled unlike anything I’d ever encountered. I couldn’t help tasting it, and once I did, I devoured it right down to its hard, woody pit. If I died, at least I’d die happy. I took a few more for my pack and kept moving. Following the sound of trickling water, I found a fastmoving creek that carved through the overgrown forest. The water was clear and cold, better-tasting than any we had behind the Wall.

  I found a place to sit, a flat, moss-covered stone in a hollow between two waist-high roots. Gazing up, I could see very little of the dome above me, only glints here and there of lilac through the ceiling of leafy green. I scratched at the moss covering my stone seat and discovered that it was not a stone at all but a section of collapsed brick wall, crumbling and overgrown. So it had, at some time, been part of the city. I wondered how long it would take for the silent, hollow graveyard outside to be so transformed.

  Lulled by my full stomach, the oddly comforting animal noises, and the sense that I was finally safe for a while, I dozed. Here I was inside, shielded from the emptiness of the clouds overhead. I couldn’t think how many hours had passed since I woke in darkness in my cell at the Institute. It was warm in the hollow, and the smells of earth and life overcame me.

  Chapter 13

  When I woke, night was falling outside the barrier. Inside it was dark; only a faint violet sheen from the bubble of magic gilded the trees. I thought at first that it was this shift in the light that had awakened me, but then I realized what had changed. The forest had gone silent again. Well, I thought, perhaps all the animals go to sleep when it grows dark. But that didn’t ring true to me. There had been a passage in one of our textbooks in which the cacophony of noise that erupted after nightfall had kept an explorer from sleeping during the night.

  Then there was a sound, a tentative whoop. It was cut off mid-cry, ending in a horrible gurgling wheeze. Above and some distance to my right, I saw the branches leap and wiggle with movement, the leaves hissing against each other wildly.

  I pressed myself against the tree at my back. Until now, I had managed not to think too much about the stories we had been told as children, about the things that existed beyond the Wall.

  I listened as hard as I could, but I heard nothing else, only the slight creaking of wooden tree trunks as if in a breeze. I closed my eyes, trying to hold absolutely still, breathing shallowly. The wooden creaking grew louder, and then the hot pit of fear in my gut turned to ice.

  It isn’t windy.

  Above me, the branches were moving. Not rustling as if the wind or an animal were moving them, but moving from within, with deliberation, with dexterity. As I watched, a branch disentangled itself from one of its neighbors and very delicately plucked a curtain of moss from itself. On either side of me, the wall-like roots that had been such a comfort were now arching toward each other, enclosing me.

  I screamed and threw myself and my bag out the rapidly shrinking opening. I lurched to my feet and looked behind me.

  The tree loomed over me, huge, dark, and inescapable. Its branches enclosed me, its trunk opening in a huge, gaping maw. The faint light coming from the barrier above edged row upon row of tiny, razor-sharp teeth in violet. They pointed backward, lining what would have been its throat. I saw no end to them.

  A touch just behind my ear shattered the hypnosis holding me in place. I shrieked again and flailed out with all my strength, and felt the branch that had made a grab for me snap. A wooden groan issued from that gaping hole in the trunk. I flung myself away and sprinted into the dark forest.

  As far as I could tell I was near the center of the pocket. I had thought that the further I got away from the edges, the less likely the pixies would be able to sense me. I had no time to curse my own stupidity. Instead I picked a direction at random and threw myself through the wood.

  Just there—ahead of me. The faintest glimmer, a lighter patch among the hungry blackness of the tree trunks. The edge of the magic.

  Though my chest and my legs felt as though they would burst, I forced in a lungful of air and pressed forward. The patch grew lighter, larger. The border. I would make it.

  I was only a few yards away when a tree crashed down in front of me. Its mouth was inches from my face, all its teeth bared, its razor-lined throat hungry and moaning. My momentum would carry me straight into its jaws. I threw my hands
up, felt my head spin and the air go out of my lungs. A burst of blinding light, a clap of sound so loud it left my ears ringing, and the tree exploded. My momentum carried me forward, and I half fell, half threw myself through the barrier.

  I struck the ground and had only time to look up and see the empty blackness of the overcast sky above before I shut my eyes. The vastness overwhelmed me. I clung to consciousness with grim determination, only the knowledge that I couldn’t stay here keeping me from lapsing into oblivion.

  I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my forehead against the cool earth. A wave of exhaustion so intense that I nearly retched swept over me. This, then, was proof that I should avoid using magic if I possibly could.

  Still, better weak and nauseous than eaten by a tree.

  In my weariness, I could not spare a moment’s reflection for the strangeness of that thought. I could only drag myself into the meager shelter provided by a nearby collapsed building. I collapsed onto my knees and then onto my face, and was asleep before my brain registered the jolt of my body hitting the ground.

  •  •  •

  I dreamed I was in the pipe under the school again, enclosed in brick and mortar and thick, warm air. The stone pressed into my arms and my knees and I couldn’t move, but this time there was no terror. I was cocooned and safe. The whisper of the air cleaners echoed through the tunnels, rising and falling, and somewhere in the distance I could hear water coming closer and closer.

  Somehow I knew the water would be warm, and I put my cheek down on the brick to wait for it to wash me away. The rushing sound grew louder and louder, and just as the oncoming wave was about to reach me I lifted my head, and woke.

  The sound that in my dream had been the comforting whisper of machinery and water was real—something I could not identify. A voice, inhuman, whispering and howling by turns. The warm closeness of the dream fell away, leaving me shivering, blinking, trying to remember where I was. A cold fear sparked somewhere in my mind, pressing me to the earth where I had been sleeping. It was not a human sound, and not anything I could have guessed would come from an animal.