Strange Attractors - Kim Falconer [155]
Do you still have it? Did you hold onto Passillo?
She looked down at her hand, a tight fist, knuckles white. Slowly she relaxed her fingers, mud oozing out between them. In the palm of her hand was the vial, pulsing with a faint blue light.
We got it, Dray. Passillo is here with us. Jarrod is here with us. We are safe. The corridors are safe.
That’s a relief, he said, stepping back a few feet before doing a full body shake. Water flung from him in arcs, his fur spiked like lava peaks. You need to get warm, Maudi. You’re the colour of mould.
‘Nice comparison.’ She struggled to sit up. ‘Dray, you put tooth holes in my arm.’ Her hands went to her ears. ‘Drayco? Drayco!’
Maudi, don’t shout. They’ll hear you in Corsanon.
‘Drayco! I can’t…I can’t…’ She pulled her hands back from her head, her fingertips bloody. I can’t hear. She looked at the clouds moving under the sun, the treetops swaying, the gorge water bubbling past. She surveyed the silence, her eyes returning to Drayco. I’m deaf.
Grayson finished his apple, the sweet juice washing down the bile that rose in his throat. ‘Are you sure, Maluka? ASSIST?’
‘I’ve spent time in Half Moon Bay, remember? I was there when we stormed ASSIST. Their scent is all over the place. The boot prints, everything. They climbed the fence a league to the west. Three of them. Maybe a fourth. The tracks are crisscrossed.’
‘Behind the first knoll?’ He shooed away flies that were alighting on his apple core.
‘They were out of sight, but the scent is clear.’
Grayson shaded his eyes; the sun was baking the top of his head, even through the branches. ‘That means we’ve trackers among us?’ he asked. ‘Spies?’
‘We had. They’re gone now. The trail leads back, towards the coast. Three of them at least.’
‘There could be one among us still?’
‘Either that, or they didn’t survive.’
He searched the distance. ‘Trackers,’ he whispered. ‘ASSIST isn’t down after all.’
‘What are they, exactly? Scouts?’
‘ASSIST’s hunting squads.’
She cleared her throat. ‘What do they hunt?’
He reached for her hand, hauling her up. When she stood in front of him, he didn’t let go. ‘Originally they were after witches, techno-witches to be exact. Then they tracked Jarrod. Followed him to Gaela, too.’
‘And now? What are they after?’
‘I can’t be sure, Maluka, but it seems they’re after us.’
‘I’d say they’re not far from their goal then. What do we do?’
‘We wait.’
‘Wait, like nesting ducks? Ridiculous! I’ll not be…’
‘Easy. We wait for Kreshkali. She won’t be long.’
Maluka strode beside him, her fists clenched. ‘And if she doesn’t come?’
‘She will.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I believe it is true. We aren’t going to let Earth go under!’
‘Go under?’ Maluka looked at the jagged red plains and the distant mountains like chimneys clogging the skies with black dust. Sweat ran down her face. She blinked her eyes. ‘How can you be so sure it hasn’t already?’
‘Because we’re still here.’
Kreshkali towered above the cliffs of the North Seas, clinging onto the highest branch of a cypress. There she perched as the sun rose, checking the landscape with her falcon eyes. As if through a telescope, she could see fine details leagues away—the paper-thin ear of a mouse, backlit by the sun, red veins standing out like rivers in a map; a drop of amber trickling down the trunk of a distant pine; the flap of purple flags anchored to Temple Dumarka’s turrets. She watched for signs of being followed—particularly trackers in the woods. When she was convinced there were none, she waited a little longer before swooping down to the temple grounds, announcing herself with a high-pitched whistle.
Saphon met her on the steps, her temple cat, Noel, by her side. ‘How lovely of you to return so soon,’ she said, her arms outstretched. She kissed Kreshkali’s cheeks, one and then the other, and then her lips.
‘The pleasure is mine.’
‘Come. We’ll have morning tea and talk of the weather. I sense a storm is coming.’
‘It’s building, indeed. Your senses do not betray