Through Fire Page 5

  Chapter 5

  Flint stood on the red rocks at the edge of the canyon and stared down into the deep gulf, frowning as he sought to make out even the slightest hint of motion in the smoky black wreck below. Something felt broken inside him, smashed apart and smouldering like the burning pieces of the Comet. Tendrils of smoke wafted up the canyon and brought him an acrid smell, a combination of scorched hair, burnt plastic and choking ozone. He ignored the stink and kept watching. Diana came and tried to pull him away but he barely noticed her, and she vanished back to the rig. He held his watch as the sun fell behind him, and cast his shadow, long and dark, over the canyon. By then shadows had already wrapped the Comet’s remains in a thick dark shroud, but still, small fires glowed like distant stars. When his shadow fell across the canyon, those fires diminished, and at last they faded away, leaving nothing more than a smoky tang that lingered in his nose and throat. When at last he looked up, Flint couldn’t tell where his shadow ended and the night began, or if it extended all the way from his body to the far side of the canyon. In some obscure sense he felt it had to, that his shadow had to reach that far, for in shadows his friend lay, and perhaps his hope lay there too, for he felt his hope had left him, lost in the fall, but if his shadow could cross the canyon, perhaps his hope could too, and find something better than this chilling emptiness in the night, for the night itself was the world’s shadow, and only at night did the dark sky sparkle with ten thousand adamantine suns.

  With that wish, he slipped off his old leather jacket, and looked down into the abyss. “Warmth, Vern.” He threw the jacket into the depths, and it vanished. Then he turned his back and walked, stiff and weak, to the Rhino, where he sat in the pilot’s seat, the cockpit unlit, switched on all the external lights, fired up the turbine, and took the Rhino slowly, slowly, back across the rocky scrub-land to the way. Once he got the smooth black surface under the rig, he aimed the machine northeast, following the line of the way and the route of the race, and locked it on the cruise setting. Then he started to rise to take a long hot shower, when fatigue overwhelmed him, and he fell back in the chair, and slid down into the warm dark silence of sleep.

  +

  Hands reached down in the dark waters where he floated, lifted him high in the air, into a place of light and screeching. He tried to tear free and dive back down, but the hands shook him harder, and the noise resolved into a high-pitched voice calling his name over and over. He woke with a gasp, eyes wide and bleary, and found Diana leaning over him, clutching the lapels of his blue shirt, and shouting into his face. “Flint, thank God you’re awake, look!”

  He blinked several times, pushed her aside, grabbed the wheel, and scanned the way ahead, certain there had to be a rock rushing up to smash them. He even imagined, in his half-awake state, that Blenner had somehow come back from the dead, and was now hurtling down on them in a flaming rig from hell.

  Nothing.

  His brows furrowed as he scoured the way for an obstacle, another rig, anything that would explain Diana’s frantic efforts to wake him. At last he shook his head. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing to see.”

  She pressed her lips together in a tight line, and rolled her eyes. “Not out there. Here,” she said, and jabbed a finger against the gauges behind the wheel.

  Flint wiped sleep from his eyes, leaned forward, and peered at the fuel gauge. “Oh shit.”

  “Right?”

  “Three percent? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  She gasped. “That’s a bad word Flint.”

  “Yeah, sorry, but three percent? Are you f-”

  “Flint! Stop cursing and do something.”

  He looked from the fuel gauge to her worried red eyes, and out at the rolling black length of the way, and when that gave him no comfort, he looked further afield, at the grassy plain that extended on the left, and the thick dark forest that rose up the hill slopes on the right. He shook his head. “Oh, this is not good.”

  “We need water, right? There must be a place we can go.”

  He rubbed his jaw. “Not anywhere good.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “How bad can it be?”

  “You remember the burned streak I showed you? On the tail?”

  Her mouth fell open, and, wordless, she dropped into the copilot’s seat.

  He nodded. “Right.”

  “If we run into one of those, those fire monsters, the Rhino could… We could...” She put her fists together, and then spread her arms out, fingers splayed. “Boom.”

  “You saw what happened to Blenner’s rig.”

  She put her hands in her lap. “What choice do we have?”

  He eyed the fuel gauge, certain it would tick down any second. “We could set the rig down right here, call for help.”

  “Wait, you mean.”

  “It might be okay, but...”

  “You’re not Mr Popular right now.”

  “Not right now. And even if someone did listen, there’s an even chance they’d think it’s a trick to get an edge in the race. We’d get picked up eventually, but it’d be a long wait, with very little to drink.”

  She made a fist, and punched her palm. “You’re the rigger, Flint. You’re supposed to know what to do.”

  “Diana, I know what to do. I just don’t like it.”

  She looked up at him, her red eyes shining with tears, and Flint saw how young and scared she was. “This hasn’t been like I expected.”

  Flint felt his throat tighten. “This hasn’t been like I expected either, Diana.” He looked out of the window, trying to blink away the moisture that welled up in his eyes. “Sometimes the way is kind, and sometimes she stabs you in the foot with a rusty nail.”

  “Two percent, Flint. What are you going to do?”

  He ground his teeth together. “I’m going to get us some fucking water.” He turned the rig right, and Diana screamed as he drove it straight at a grove of tall old oak trees. He held course, and gave an exultant shout as the Rhino smashed through the trees, spraying bark and wood pulp in all directions. Then he sent the rig forward and up the gentle slope, crashing through trees as she went.

  “Flint,” Diana cried, “what are you doing?”

  “There’s a valley on the other side of this hill,” he yelled over the sounds of destruction. “We don’t have time to go around, so we’re taking a shortcut.”

  “What about the fire monster? You said they live in standing water, not rivers.”

  He sucked air through his teeth. “Yeah, there’s a lake somewhere around here too.”

  “Somewhere?”

  “Wish me luck.”

  She buried her head in her hands, and he plowed on through the forest.

  +

  Soon the Rhino crested the rise and began to move downhill, but still the trees rose thick ahead and around, blocking the way, and casting deep gloom that seemed to creep inside the cockpit and made Flint switch on the rig’s headlights. This did little to improve visibility, and it had the perverse effect of casting shadows among the trees ahead, that rippled and danced as the rig rushed down upon them. And then the rig smashed through the last line of trees, and burst out into a clear grassy slope.

  Flint pursed his lips. “Oh.”

  Diana peered at him through interlaced fingers. “What is it, Flint? It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Look for yourself.” He cut power, and eased the rig down the slope.

  Diana raised her head and looked out of the window, and Flint knew she had seen it too. The grassy slope led down to a broad, weed-choked bank beside a wide flowing river. To the right it flowed down at a gentle angle until it swept left with the valley, and disappeared behind the hills on the far side. On the left she saw a high rock cliff, and watched water pour down from that height, to fall in a white spray that danced with rainbows, and massed in foam where it fed the river. Her jaw fell slack, and she gasped. “I’ve never seen that.” She turned to Flint, her eyes shining. “I�
�ve read about them in books, but I’ve never seen one.”

  He set the Rhino down by the water, facing upriver, so they could take in the waterfall. Then he killed the engines, sat back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and sighed. “Something good,” he said. “Makes a nice change.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the sparkling water. “It’s so beautiful.”

  He grinned. “Remember this, Diana. Something to tell your grandchildren.”

  “I wish I could show all the children.”

  Flint put a hand over his mouth, rubbed his jaw, and felt his hand rasp on thick stubble. Then he stood up and started for the door.

  Diana half-turned to him, but her eyes remained locked on the scene outside. “Must we leave this so soon?”

  He leaned against the door. “You can do what you want. I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to have me some breakfast.”

  Then she looked up at him. “Breakfast?”

  “I haven’t eaten anything since we had those pastries at Smelt, and someone stole mine before I could finish it.”

  She gazed up at him with a smile playing around her lips. “Flint, let’s not fight over the past.”

  He rolled his eyes and turned away. “You owe me a pastry.”

  +

  Flint stood over the electric stove and slapped strips of bacon down on the stainless steel pan. The meat began to sizzle, and a delicious aroma filled the air. His stomach tightened, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Then he straightened up, cracked a couple of eggs, and tossed them in the pan. He sliced up some tomatoes and threw them in, too, and then he whipped up some hash browns and pancakes. Finally he made a huge pot of strong, black coffee, closed his eyes, and let the rich, mouthwatering mix of scents flow into and through him. Then he called the others, and they sat around the little fold-out table. Diana perched on a green canvas folding chair he’d pulled out of a box in the hold, while Flint and Caerlion occupied the two heavy mahogany chairs. But for a few perfunctory words of polite greeting, they ate in silence, absorbed in the meal. Flint demolished his bacon and hash browns, and he fought Diana over the pancakes, while Caerlion concentrated on the eggs and fried tomatoes.

  Sated at last, Flint sat back in his chair, clasped his warm coffee cup close to his face, and savoured the fragrance. Then he let the hot bitter liquid flow across his tongue and down his throat, felt heat spread throughout his body, felt his vision sharpen, and his mind quicken. He watched the other two over the rim of his cup, Caerlion, now in a pressed burgundy suit with a sea-blue shirt and a green bow tie, sipping his coffee and writing notes on a small pad of yellow paper. Flint looked at Diana, who had sulked when he’d given her milk instead of coffee, but clapped her hands when he’d let her pour honey on her pancakes. She had exchanged her white dress for a pair of worn, patched blue jeans and a cream blouse, and she’d tied her hair back into a ponytail. She still wore her old pink sneakers, though. Flint loved his leathers, but after he’d tossed the jacket into the canyon, he didn’t feel good about wearing the trousers, and besides, he’d been wearing the same blue shirt since before the race. He’d swapped them for a pair of khaki combat trousers and a black cotton shirt, and he’d pulled out his backup pair of black leather boots; although they were about as worn as the other pair, they were much less sweaty.

  They all sat together, eating, drinking, calm and comfortable, and Flint felt tranquility grow in him, a warm, rising feeling, as if gravity had loosened its grip, and let him float, buoyant, towards the smiling sun. He remembered his plan, when he’d walked out of the gathering. He remembered his dream of racing free across the inland way, no cares but the needs of his rig and his belly, running with the sun, sleeping with the moon. He seemed to have caught a fragment of that dream, the feeling of it, alive in a splinter of time. But his mind, awake now, moved fast, too fast, and he saw the sharp, jagged edge approaching. How long could he enjoy this, an hour? A day? Then he would have to do something about Diana. He found he could no longer think of her as ‘the girl’, for in the short time they’d run together, they’d been through more madness than he usually saw in a year. She’d make a good rigger, perhaps, but that day lay far in the future, and he had to do something about her today, tomorrow, and every day until he found her a place to stay. As for her tutor… He had no idea what to think of Caerlion. The man seemed so awkward in speech, and yet he seemed to float through stress and danger, as if they didn’t quite penetrate to his depths.

  Or, mused Flint, as if he had none.

  He caught Diana watching him, light glinting in her eyes. “You were far away there, Flint,” she said. “But then you came back, and you got that look again.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I never left my seat. What look are you talking about?”

  Her face pinched with a show of concentration. “It’s like when we were running from...”

  He didn’t need her to tell him. “That rig.”

  “That rig, yeah, and you sort of hunched up and your eyes got sort of tight, like you were a hunted rabbit.”

  “I’m no rabbit.”

  “Rhino, then. Lions hunt rhinos, don’t they?”

  He noticed Caerlion watching them from lowered eyes. “Not if they’re smart, they don’t.”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you proved that. You’re dangerous when you run, Flint. You should race, really race. I bet you’d show the other riggers what for.”

  He drained his coffee, set the mug down, and stood up. “That’s as may be, little girl, but we’re not going to show anyone anything until we take on some water.”

  Her eyes flashed at the slight, but she rose too. “So what are you waiting for, rigger?”

  +

  Diana shrieked, and Flint looked up from the pump that snaked into the sparkling river, grabbed his blackthorn stick, followed Diana’s pointing finger, and scanned the treeline. He frowned. “Don’t see anything.”

  She kept her eyes on the trees. “Someone’s watching us, Flint.”

  “Not saying you’re wrong, there are folks who live in these woods, but they’re shy.”

  She flicked her eyes at the length of blackthorn in his hands. “Then why do you have the stick?”

  He hefted the weapon. “Mostly shy.”

  They stood watching the trees for a minute or so, and then Flint set his stick down against a broad flat rock near the river, and watched the instruments on the pump. After a few minutes more, Diana came over, sat on the rock, and watched him. The pump extended from a hatch in the Rhino’s grey hide near the right rear fin, a thick black tube wrapped in fine silver wire, passed through a bulky control unit, and stretched out again to end in a round metallic intake that now lay submerged, a faint ripple in the flowing water the only sign it gave as it drank from the river.

  Diana’s brow wrinkled as she eyed the river. “If there are people living here, how do we know that water’s clean?”

  Flint kept his eyes on the gauges. They had drained the Rhino’s tanks, and he could see it was going to be a long wait before they could hit the way. “It’ll be fine,” he murmured.

  “But don’t they, you know, do things… In the water?”

  A grin rolled across his lips. He tried to suppress it, but the harder he tried, the wider he beamed.

  She pouted. “Don’t laugh at me.”

  He got his face under control and looked her in the eyes. “Diana, the people who live here are smart enough not to foul their own water. Besides, the Rhino filters and cleans everything I put in her tanks. You can’t risk running some weird old-world chemical through the turbine, and you can’t risk drinking bad water when you’re alone on the way, far from the city, far from anyone who can help.”

  She folded her arms. “Hmm.”

  “Actually, water on a rig is as clean and pure as anything you’ll get back home. Where do you think Bay City’s water comes from?”

  “Yeah, I know, we get it
from the sea at Glory Point. That’s not what I want to know. We’re out here now, away from the race, away from my uncle, away from...” She glanced back at the rig.

  “Caerlion.”

  “Shh!”

  He put his hands up in mock surrender.

  She took a deep breath, and gave him a serious look. “There’s water here, and trees, maybe there’s fruit, or wild animals, you know, something to eat.”

  “Not long since breakfast. You getting hungry already?”

  She shook her head, turned her back on him, and started to pace, gesturing at the trees. “You could cut down some of them, build a house right here, on the river bank, with a little garden over there, and maybe some little houses for chickens or pigs or cows over this way.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “This is a shallow bank, and it’s covered with dry, dead reeds.”

  She turned back to face him. “So?”

  “River’s flooded recently, and drowned this whole area. Then it shrank back down, and the sun came out, and left a nice dry bank for us to settle the rig on. You build a house here, you’d better make sure it floats.”

  Her face turned red, and her eyes shone with tears. She whirled around, and walked towards the trees. “I thought you were different,” she said, “I thought you understood, but you’re just another bossy grown-up.”

  He winced, and his hands grasped at the air. “Diana...”

  She yelped, spun round, and ran back towards him.

  “Diana?”

  She collided with him, wrapped her left arm around his waist, and thrust the other back the way she’d came. “There, there, I told you I saw someone.”

  Flint looked up and saw a figure emerge from the shadowed forest edge, a small girl with thick blue braids, a rough leather skirt and jacket, and eyes of jade. She carried a short trident in one hand, and had a sack of woven reeds across her back.

  The girl gazed at them down the bank, mouth closed, eyes narrow. Flint hushed Diana, and they watched as she walked to the river, waded into the cool clear, waters, raised her trident, and plunged it down, to lift it again, a wriggling fish impaled on the weapon’s teeth. She grinned at them, put the creature into her sack, repeated the hunt two more times, and then slipped away up the bank and back into the forest.

  Diana let go of Flint, brushed her blouse, and sat on the rock next to his stick. “I didn’t expect that.”

  He shook his head. “Me neither.”

  “Where was it?”

  “What?”

  She reached into her blouse, and pulled out the fine gold necklace she wore, and the diamond that hung upon it. “This, Flint. Where was her jewel?”

  His jaw tightened. “Put that away.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous? Will they stab me with their little fishing spears to get it?”

  He spoke through clenched teeth. “They don’t need those things out here.”

  “But-”

  He stood tall and glared down at her. “They may not live in cities, but the forest folk are civilised. They don’t sell their children. They don’t hang a tag around their daughter’s necks and say my girl is worth one ruby.”

  “Or one diamond?”

  “Or one diamond.”

  She swallowed, and tucked the necklace away.

  He leaned over her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, you want to be free? You want to be wild, like they are? Toss that chain in the river.”

  She pulled back. “Flint, I-”

  “Thought of river, good to see.” The man spoke from behind Flint, and closer than he liked.

  “Caerlion,” he let go of Diana, turned, and faced the man. “Thought you were planning a history lesson.”

  “Ethics, perhaps, next on agenda. Professional ethics.”

  Flint’s eyes narrowed. “How about equality? How about class struggle?”

  Diana made a small noise. “Um, Flint...”

  Caerlion showed him the trace of a smile. “Fascinating topic, fascinating. Begin with Sparta. Who plays the helot, who the warrior lord?”

  “You’re the tutor, Caerlion. You tell me.”

  “Flint, look over there.”

  “Hold on Diana,” he said, holding Caerlion’s gaze. “I want to hear this.”

  “Flint, look. Look, look over there!”

  He frowned and turned away from the tutor, and then he gasped. Over where the little fisher girl had disappeared, a large group of wildlanders emerged from the trees, their eyes hard, and their trident blades gleaming.

  +

  Flint’s eyes widened when he saw the forest people, and he made calming gestures to his companions. Diana leapt from her rock, and started to run for the rig. Flint shouted and tried to grab her, but she got past him, and then Caerlion glided after her, flicked one arm at her shoulder, and spun her around. He gripped her by the wrist and ponytail, and held her in place.

  “Let me go,” she said, and strained against his holds, then winced when he pulled her head back.

  “Rigger seems to think running not in order.”

  Flint closed in, stick in his hands. “That’s enough, Caerlion.”

  “Misunderstanding?”

  Flint rolled his eyes. “I wanted to keep thing calm, not have you torture the girl. Now who knows what they’ll think?”

  Caerlion sniffed. “Calm, hear that girl? Calm.” He let her go, stepped back, and adjusted his green bow tie.

  Diana stalked away from him, her face reddened, her jaw clamped shut, and tears streamed down her face. Flint put himself between her and her tutor, and put a consoling hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. He glanced from her to Caerlion and back, brow wrinkled, trying to understand what had happened. Caerlion had always given off this strange, otherworldly vibe, as if he’d been frozen a thousand years in the past, and part of his brain hadn’t thawed. He’d always treated Diana as if he were the polite ambassador of a powerful nation, dictating terms to a tiny island state, but he’d never used force on her.

  Not when I was there to see it, he thought. Maybe this explained why she had started discussing cyanide and hemlock as soon as she’d boarded the Rhino. He’d thought it was a joke, but now…

  But now the forest people walked up and raised their tridents overhead. He saw Diana swallow, and Caerlion turned pale, but Flint raised his blackthorn stick in imitation of the newcomers, and met their jade gaze with amber. They held that pose like a tableau from one of the old tales, until the forest people beamed at him, lowered their tridents, and wrapped themselves around Flint, chattering, all of them trying to pat him on the back at the same time.

  “Firestone,” said the tallest among them, a woman with intricate blue braids and a long black snake tattoo that ran from her brow, down her face and neck, under her brown leather jacket, and down and around her arms, to end in a tail on her left palm, and a snake head with gaping jaws on her right. “Back so soon. I bet Greyface a basket of fish you’d return before the rains.”

  “Looks like he’ll finally have to fix his trident, Blacksnake. Or has he finished already?”

  She shook her head. “We still have the metal you brought us.” She showed him the long steel teeth of her trident, and the etched snake that danced up them. “But he prefers to sit under the trees, and tell the children stories of the old world.”

  The forest people huddled around Diana and Caerlion, and while the tutor looked uneasy, the girl pushed her way to Flint’s side and looked up at the rigger. “What is going on here, Flint?”

  “Yes,” said Blacksnake, in a tone that Flint recognised as mock serious. “How dare you smash a path through our ancient trees, and, worse yet, bring outsiders into our sacred forest?”

  Diana folded her arms across her chest, and slid behind Flint.

  He caught the older woman’s eye. “Knock it off, Blacksnake.” He sighed. “Sorry about the trees, though. Okay Diana, say hello to Blacksnake, chief of the forest people. And Blacksnake, meet Diana Ambrel, daughter of the late Buck Amb
rel, President of Bay City, and a damn fine rigger in his day.”

  Blacksnake’s eyes hardened as she looked down at Diana, and raised her trident overhead. Diana stiffened, and then she drew herself up, and raised her first in the air. Blacksnake showed her a bright smile, threw her arms around the girl, and hugged her. “You are as welcome as water in the desert, Diana Ambrel. Your father was known to us, and I am sorry, so very sorry, to hear of his passing.”

  Diana tried to say something in return, but her words were choked by sobs, tears welled up in her eyes and flooded down her face, and she held onto Blacksnake, and wept.

  +

  Flint mused on the transformation he’d seen come over Diana, half-listening to the chatter of the forest people as they led him and his charges up a trail through the woods to a flat, bowl-shaped area partway up the hill, which concealed a collection of long wooden cabins, each one strengthened here and there by lengths of salvaged metal pipes, and the whole sealed with multiple layers of translucent blue plastic sheeting. Soft grass grew underfoot, and the air carried a complex aroma of moss, pine resin, and baking bread. The smells made his mouth water, and the fresh loaves brought out by the villagers to welcome their guests woke up his stomach. He thanked them for the gift, joined the others at a long table in the sun, near the middle of the village, and chewed the warm, moist bread as he considered his young charge. When he’d met her she had danced across the Rhino with a wild, devil-may-care attitude. When they’d fought with Blen Clavar, she had stayed calmer than most folks would, and probably saved his life, and she had definitely saved the Rhino from dying of thirst just a few hours back. She might have sniped at him from time to time, but she had borne the pressure of their journey without cracking, and then, with a few words and an embrace from Blacksnake, she had broken down and cried like a child, and now, her tears drained, she chased and danced and played with the village children like one of their own. He realised how much of a strain she must have been under, in an adult world that had taken her father’s life, and tried to take hers, too.

  With luck, the worst of that was over, he thought, and they could trail along the rest of the race, touch ground at Glory Point, and he could deliver her back to the waiting arms of her family, and then he would be free to go his way. But some thorn dug into him, a pain he couldn’t identify. The more he considered how she had talked, and how Caerlion had acted, he felt a growing unease with the idea of simply taking her home. But however he felt, she was a child, and her family was waiting for her back in the bay, and who was he to deprive them of a daughter, a niece, based on a vague sense of discomfort?

  A girl squealed. “Uncle Firestone!”

  He looked up from his half-eaten bread, and saw a small figure with braided blonde hair and copper eyes jumping and waving at him with a blunt toy trident. As he watched, she dropped the toy and came running his way. He made it to his feet before she slammed into him and threw her arms around his waist. He gave her an embarrassed smile, and patted her head. “It’s good to see you, Caldy.”

  “I missed you so much, Uncle Firestone.” She looked up at him. “Did you bring any pancakes?”

  “I… Sort of?” He scratched his head.

  “Caldy?” Diana left the group of children she’d been playing with, and walked over to them. “Caldonia Clavar?” The girl turned to her, and said nothing when she took her hands in her own. “Oh, what happened to your arms?” She turned them over, and examined the pink, tender skin, where some rough fibre had bitten deep into the girl’s wrists perhaps a week before. The girl stiffened, and started to cry.

  Diana put her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry! Did I say something wrong?”

  “Caldonia,” called a woman with a rich contralto voice.

  Caldy ran across to her, and grabbed her hands. “She said… She saw my...”

  “I know, Caldy,” said the woman, crouching down to wipe her face with a green silk handkerchief. “She didn’t mean anything by it. She’s a friend, Suzy Ambrel’s girl. Come on,” she led Caldy by the hand, back to the long table, where Diana and Flint stood watching. The woman wore her golden hair long and loose, her blue dress rippled as she walked, and her copper eyes shone with warmth as she locked eyes with Flint. “It’s a pleasure, Flint,” she said, and took his hand and squeezed it. In that moment, the long sleeve of her dress slipped down her arm, and Flint saw Diana flinch when she noticed the same marks on the woman’s wrists. Then the newcomer turned to Diana. “I’m Tessa. It’s delightful to see someone from the bay all the way out here in the wild lands,” she said. “But whatever are you doing in the company of this crazy rigger?”

  Diana stared up at her, mouth hanging wide, then she shook herself and started to say something, but the words wouldn’t come, and she chewed her lip, and shook her head. Flint patted her on the shoulder. “It’s alright, Diana. It’s a lot to tell.” He caught Tessa’s eye, invited her and the others to sit with him, and began to speak. “Diana here is my charge. We’re running the presidential race, Tessa.” Once he started to tell it, the words poured out in a torrent, and when the villagers noticed, they crowded in to hear the story, someone handed him a rough home-brewed beer, and he found himself carried away by the events of the tale, until an hour had passed, and the shadows had begun to grow between the cabins. “And by now, unless the river has frozen over or turned to sand, the Rhino will have drunk her fill and be ready to go.”

  “But you can’t go now,” said Tessa. “It’s late, and it’s a long walk down to the river. You must eat with us, stay for the night. You’re in no rush, as I understand it.”

  Flint looked at Diana, and saw a big smile creep across her face. He turned back to Tessa. “Couldn’t turn down that kind of hospitality, Tessa.”

  She beamed. “Then it’s settled.”

  A voice sounded in the following silence. “Settled, definitively, it is not.”

  Flint looked up to see Caerlion standing at the end of the table, arms crossed, and the falling sun at his back turned his burgundy suit black, and made his bald head shine red, so he seemed like a shadow with a crimson halo. The sight disturbed Flint, both in that it he saw no reason for the tutor to object to a single night’s rest, unless he was allergic to nature, or something, but also on a deeper level that he couldn’t quite express. “Caerlion, sit down, have a beer, and try to enjoy yourself. Take it as a learning experience.”

  “Waste of time. Not acceptable.”

  Flint rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, you go on down to the Rhino and start up the engines. Oh, wait, I forgot… You can’t, can you? You can’t even open the door. That’s right, Caerlion, I’m the rigger, not you, and I say we enjoy this chance, because the way is long, and friends are far and few.”

  Caerlion sighed. “Like you, really do. Not personal. Schedule, see? Can’t be late.”

  “What are you talki-”

  Caerlion unfolded his arms and revealed a stubby black L-shaped object, which he pointed at Flint.

  Flint wrinkled his brow. “What does that do?”

  Diana pounded the table with her fist. “Flint, I know what that is.”

  His eyes strayed to her and back to Caerlion. “I’m as confused as a bee in a bottle. Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Caerlion shot Diana a cold smile. “Proceed.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It’s a gun, Flint.”

  “A gun? I said you read too many books. There aren’t any more guns. Nobody knows how to make them any more.”

  “People, no,” said Caerlion, “but maker machines, yes.”

  Flint shook his head, bemused. “You can’t expect me to take this seriously. I know all of the maker families, and none of them make guns. There’s only one guy who even makes knives, and when his machine finally breaks we’ll have to cut our food with chipped glass.”

  “Other machines,” said Caerlion. “Other places. Rigger found them, brought back. Just a few. Need more. Sent me. Pay, load, carry home.”

&n
bsp; “In your rig, Flint,” said Diana. “He wants to take them back in your rig.”

  Flint kept shaking his head. “No, no… This is a lot of nonsense. There aren’t any guns any more. That’s just a toy. You’re playing make-believe, Caerlion. Obviously, being tutor to the President’s daughter isn’t exciting enough for you.”

  Caerlion laughed. “Blindness and insight, curious mix. Not everyone needs excitement, rigger.” He pointed the thing at Diana’s head. “Gamble?”

  Flint’s mouth went dry. “Your game’s gone far enough.”

  Caerlion swung the thing at an empty chair, a blast sounded like thunder, and the chair exploded in a cloud of splinters. Flint’s ears rang with the noise, and the villagers leapt up and ran in all directions. He started to rise, but then Caerlion turned the weapon his way, and he froze. The tutor mouthed something, but Flint couldn’t hear a word. Caerlion frowned, and then he motioned for Flint and Diana to get up and walk back to the trees, and the path down to the rig.

  Flint stood, dazed, as if the world had turned inside out. For a moment he forgot where he was and how he’d got there. Then he saw Diana rise from her seat, and he knew he had to do something, had to stop Caerlion, or slow him down enough to give her a chance to get away, because if he let him take them back down to the rig, they would be locked in a box with a madman. It seemed that one of the villagers felt the same way, for in that moment a trident flew across the clearing, aimed at Caerlion’s chest. The tutor must have caught the flash of motion from the corner of his eye, for he ducked and turned, and deflected the weapon with his arm, although one steel blade, etched with a snake, ripped the arm of his suit jacket, and blood welled up from the cut. The sight galvanised Flint, and he snatched up a chair and hurled it at Caerlion, who snarled with pain from the first attack, and failed to react as quickly this time. The wooden chair struck him in the face and chest, and he fell backwards. Flint sprinted forward, saw Caerlion roll back with his fall, and come up on his feet, gun raised. Flint dove under the weapon, heard a second blast, felt the wind as it tore the air over his head, and then he drove his shoulder into Caerlion’s gut. The two men tumbled and rolled, Flint landed on top, got one hand under the tutor’s gun arm, forced it up so the weapon pointed, useless, at the sky, and hammered punches at Caerlion’s face, but the tutor thrashed his head like a snake, dodging the worst of the blows, then thrust the stiff fingers of his left hand into Flint’s throat. Flint gagged, choked, reeled away, and in that moment Caerlion slipped free, sprang to his feet, raised the gun high, and swung it down against Flint’s head.

  Stars burst behind Flint’s eyes, and faded as he felt himself fall into a gaping abyss.