Storm Thief Read online

  “Oh. . .” she breathed. “It’s wonderful.”

  “You keep hold of it,” he told her.

  “But it’s yours,” she said, though her protest was half-hearted. She was already entranced. “You found it. It could be worth a fortune.”

  “You keep that safe, I’ll keep you safe. How’s that?”

  She looked up at him and gave him a heartbreaking smile of pure and innocent happiness. She never understood why Rail did these little things for her, these little gestures of companionship, but she loved him for it. Not in the way a girl was supposed to love a boy – at least, she didn’t think so – but because it made her feel wanted. Neither Rail nor Moa had anybody to care about them but each other.

  “That’s fine,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. He put his hand on hers for a moment. Then he turned away and went into his room, and it was as if she had never touched him.

  For a time, she studied the Fade-Science artefact in the strange light of the den. Rail and Moa had never worked out the source of the illumination in their bunker hideaway. Night or day, it was always light, yet there seemed to be no lanterns or glowsticks or anything of that sort. It just seemed to come from the walls and floor and ceiling.

  They hadn’t wasted much time thinking about it. There was nobody in Orokos that hadn’t come across some wonder from the Functional Age and been baffled. People took the unknown in their stride, because they were surrounded by it. For many generations, scientists and inventors had been struggling to understand the legacy of the time before the Fade. What headway they made was frustratingly slow. For people like Rail and Moa, there was no hope of making sense of the ancient technologies. They were uneducated, without prospects, and denied both because they were raised in the ghettoes. They simply took it as good fortune that they didn’t need to light their home and left it at that.

  But the artefact . . . that was different. Moa turned it over and over while Rail packed up his meagre possessions in the other room. There were two loops at one end of the amber disc, set at right angles to it, almost like two rings joined together. Experimentally, she slid her middle two fingers through the loops, so that the amber disc lay in the middle of her palm. It was a very tight fit, but it felt right. She turned her hand this way and that.

  “Rail! I think I’ve worked out how you’re supposed to wear this thing.”

  “Wear it?” he called back through the doorway. Moa yelped suddenly. He popped back into sight, alarmed. “Moa, what are you –”

  He never finished. Moa was standing transfixed, her hand held out before her and the artefact upon it. Her forearm was sheathed in soft light, swirling veils of purple and green and blue that clung to her like fog. She moved it left and right, and the veils drifted with her.

  “Take it off!” Rail cried. He moved towards her and then stopped, not sure what to do.

  “No, it’s all right,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt.” A faint smile appeared on her face, now that it didn’t appear to be harmful. “Look at it.”

  Rail was looking at it. He couldn’t take his eyes from it. “You know what that looks like, Moa?” he said. “That looks like what happens when there’s a probability storm.”

  Moa was about to make a reply when they heard a thumping at the hatch to their den, and her blood went cold.

  “Come out, come out,” cooed a muffled voice from above. “We want to have a word with you.”

  Rail made a motion to be silent, but he hardly needed to. Moa had no intention of answering. She knew that voice. That was Finch, Anya-Jacana’s favourite. He was a superb thief, but he was an even better murderer.

  “I know you’re down there,” Finch called. “Followed you back. You going to let us in?”

  Rail looked about desperately, as if there was some kind of escape to be had. But he knew every inch of this den. There was no way out except through the hatch. They were trapped.

  “What now?” Moa said quietly.

  Rail tried to think, but the answers weren’t coming. There had always been one downside to this place: no back door. There wasn’t even any way he could get rid of the artefact. They were going to be caught red-handed, and there would be no mercy shown them. He felt panic rising within him, and if he had been on his own he might well have given in to it. But there was Moa to think of. Always Moa. She needed him to be strong for her.

  “Take that thing off,” he told her again, meaning the artefact. It was still producing beautiful colours.

  She tried to do so. It didn’t move. “I can’t!” she said, tugging at it. “It won’t come off!”

  “It has to!” he hissed, but still he didn’t dare to touch it. He was afraid of those colours. Those were the colours made by a probability storm, and it was a probability storm that had put him in a respirator.

  There was an ascending whine coming from above now, getting higher and higher in pitch.

  “If you won’t come out, little rats,” Finch called, “then we’ll come in.”

  The whine reached the peak of hearing, and then there was a massive impact on the hatch, like a giant’s fist pounding it from outside. Dust shook loose from the ceiling.

  “What is that?” Moa cried. “What is that?”

  “They’ve got a frecking magnetic ram out there,” Rail hissed. The whine began again.

  “I can hear you!” Finch yelled over the din. “Mother wants to see you, lovebirds!”

  Moa shrieked as the magnetic ram thumped once more and the hatch in the ceiling bent inwards. Though rusty on the outside, that hatch was several inches thick. The ram had been placed over it, pointing down. It stood on four stout legs that affixed themselves to the concrete around the hatch. The legs supported a cannon that fired pulses of magnetic energy. Anya-Jacana had all kinds of devices like this in her secret storehouses. The respirator that Rail wore was from the same place.

  They ran through to Rail’s room, to get away from the hatch before it caved in. Moa was still trying to get the artefact off, but it was stuck fast. Rail slapped his hands flat against the blank metal wall in frustration. The whine of the magnetic ram began again. It would only take a couple more hits and they would be through.

  It was hopeless. He knew it was hopeless. But still he searched for a way out.

  The ram fired, this time so hard that the bunker shook. Moa, obsessed with trying to remove the Fade-Science device, stumbled and tripped against the wall. She threw out her hands instinctively to protect herself –

  – and fell through the wall.

  Rail couldn’t believe what he had seen. Suddenly, he was alone. Moa was gone. He had seen her pass through solid metal as if she were a ghost. He pressed his hands against the place where she had disappeared, and it was hard and unyielding.

  The ram began to power up again. The hatch was buckled now, and its hinges were about to give way. Rail knew that the next blow would break it open, and in would come Finch and his cronies.

  But she got away, he thought, though he couldn’t imagine how. It seemed like a miracle, but the people of Orokos were used to miracles. At least she got away. And she took that thing with her.

  He gave in at last, and stopped struggling. Maybe, when she didn’t find the device on him, the thief-mistress would be merciful. Maybe she wouldn’t kill him. He didn’t care too much. Wherever she was, Moa was out of Anya-Jacana’s reach. That was all he was concerned about.

  The ram pounded again, and there was a crash in the other room as the entrance gave way. He turned around to face the boys who would come clambering through.

  Come and get me, Rail thought.

  And then a hand grabbed him from behind, and he was pulled roughly backwards. There was a split-second when he expected to collide with the metal wall, but he went through it as if it were not there. Beyond was a dank metal tunnel, dimly lit by fizzing tracklights, brown with decay. And Moa, holding
on to him with her right hand. The other one – the one with the artefact attached – was held against the side of the tunnel.

  He looked back in amazement. The metal where Moa was touching it had become transparent, a hole filled with swirling, gentle colours. Through it, he could see the first of the thieves coming through the hatch.

  Moa pulled away, and the colours sucked back to surround her hand again. The wall was solid once more.

  “It opens doors, Rail,” she breathed. “It opens doors anywhere.”

  He wanted to hug her, but he didn’t dare. Not while she was wearing that thing. Instead, he looked both ways up the corridor and picked a direction. They had none of the things they had packed, except the satchel full of loot that he had taken from Anya-Jacana. It didn’t matter.

  “Let’s go,” he said. And they ran, leaving the thieves in their den to puzzle over how their targets could have vanished into thin air.

  In the small hours of the night, Vago would talk to the painting that leaned against the wall in his room. It was quieter then: Cretch wasn’t in his laboratory, and so the pipes and valves that fed it no longer boomed and clicked. The moonlight would paint everything in peaceful shadow. Vago would stand by the window, his scrawny, elongated body of metal and muscle and wing half-hidden by the dark, and spill his thoughts to the picture. The picture never spoke back. But it did pay attention.

  It was a small painting in a brass frame. When he had found it, it was covered over with a drape, dusty with neglect. There were no other paintings in the tower. Vago wondered how this one had come to be here, and why his master had left such an interesting picture in this chamber which he rarely visited.

  The scene was of one of Orokos’s canalside areas. In the foreground ran the water, swiftly flowing from left to right. It was heading for one of the enormous vents that would spew it from the edge of the rocky island to the sea far below. Walkways and bridges cluttered the far side of the canal, and there were doorways and dreary shopfronts set on many levels. In the background rose tall spires and a huge, dark temple. Vago thought he recognized the scene, but he couldn’t think why.

  The girl was standing on the canalside on the right of the picture, leaning on the railing and looking down into the water. Her white hair spilled down one side of her face. Her dress looked expensive: the sign of a wealthy upbringing. She wasn’t a ghetto girl, that much was for sure.

  Last time Vago had checked, she had been staring out of the window of a shop, her expression bored. The time before, she had been waving at him from one of the bridges, smiling happily. A few times he couldn’t find her at all, and he panicked. He thought of her as a companion, and she was the only one he had. But she would always be back sooner or later. And she listened to him, even if she never answered. He could tell.

  “Do you know where my maker is?” he would ask her.

  Vago’s memories of the time after he was made were very fuzzy and muddled. He had fleeting impressions of a cell of some kind, a room of black iron with bars on the door. Men in black coats studied him, and he was scared of them. But there were only two things he could recollect with any clarity. One was a face, looking in at him through the curved window of some kind of tank. It was a thin, severe face, more familiar to Vago than his own. The other thing was a name: Tukor Kep. There was nobody else it could be but his maker. The one who gave him life.

  Where had he gone? Or, more accurately, where had Vago gone?

  He didn’t know how long it had been since he had found himself in this room. His memory had still not settled by then, and he was like a newborn, unable to understand what was around him. Cretch discovered him here on the morning after a particularly violent probability storm. It wasn’t hard to guess what had occurred. The Storm Thief had plucked him from the place he was made and put him elsewhere. Vago imagined his maker’s distress at discovering the golem was gone, and it made him sad. But he didn’t know how to get back.

  He ran his long fingers over the dead bird that hung around his neck. Cretch, in a moment of unusual kindness, had treated it with preserving fluid to stop it rotting and given it back to Vago. Its wings were folded now, close to its body so that they didn’t get in his way too much. Ephemera had given up laughing at it; she just sneered instead. But Vago liked the seabird, and he thought the girl in the picture did too. The first time he showed it to her, she was open-mouthed in wonder.

  When Cretch was working he sent Ephemera up to summon Vago, and the golem dutifully attended. He was a useful assistant around the laboratory. When he straightened up he was very tall, and could reach the highest shelves. His fingers were extraordinarily nimble and strong, good for delicate work. He could crush a stone between his thumb and forefinger, but he could also thread a needle first time, every time.

  The laboratory was dark and hot, but islands of bright light were thrown by hooded lamps that hung like vultures over Cretch’s workspace. There was a kiln for baking ceramics, a rotating saw and a whining lathe, a blowtorch and a little dynamo that produced tiny forks of lightning. And everywhere there were devices: mannequins, porcelain figurines, miniature animals and delicate temples. There were clockwork faces that copied the expression of whoever gurned at them. There were wheeled cats that chased wheeled mice around the room, homing in on their darting targets, drawn by some mystical force that Vago didn’t understand. There were jagbat automatons that folded and unfolded their wings restlessly. Vago made sure to keep his own wings carefully tucked away.

  Whenever Vago returned there was something new to marvel at. Even half-built, they were masterpieces. Cretch was a toymaker, and his toys were the wonder of Orokos.

  “But whoever made you, they could teach me a thing or two,” he had said to Vago more than once. “I’d love to take you apart and see what makes you tick.”

  Vago didn’t like the sound of that, and he kept quiet about Tukor Kep. He had asked Cretch once if he knew who his maker was, but Cretch said only that he “had his suspicions” and didn’t explain further. Vago didn’t dare to press him.

  Cretch was in a foul mood this morning, having not slept well the night before. Vago glanced nervously at the walking stick that lay against Cretch’s work desk. His master was bent over some tiny jewelled thing, squinting through his goggles while he tapped at it delicately with a pin. Vago lurked in the shadows and tried to be silent. He had learned to fear Cretch when he was like this. He was liable to catch a beating if he put a foot wrong today. He stroked his bird-pendant and watched his master warily.

  “Oh, my eyes. . .” Cretch groaned, pinching his brow. He had been complaining about his failing vision for some time now, and it was beginning to hamper his work. “Vago, come here.”

  The golem came closer, looming over the old man.

  “Hold this,” he said, motioning at the jewelled thing. It turned out to be a beetle, formed of glittering strands as delicate as spun sugar. “Carefully!”

  Vago did as he was told, pinching it with one hand to hold it still. It was tougher than it looked, but even so, it was terrifying to have to squeeze it, no matter how gently. He was afraid he would break it. He might have known Cretch would give him some task like this. It was as if the old man wanted an excuse to beat him.

  “Good, good,” Cretch said. He peered closer and began to scratch at the beetle again with his needle. “Now turn it a little. The other way, I mean. Good.”

  Cretch worked nimbly around the beetle with the point of his pin, clearing away minute specks of grit and flaked metal that hid at the edges of the gemstones. Vago began to relax a little. Cretch just wanted him to hold it because it was too delicate for any of his instruments. As long as he didn’t squeeze any harder than this, then everything would be fine.

  “What do you suppose you were made for, Vago?” Cretch asked absently while he worked.

  Vago didn’t have an answer. Cretch took his silence as meaning that he didn�
��t understand.

  “It’s not easy, you know. Creating life. I can’t do it. I can create the best copies of life in the city, but none of them are like you.”

  “Am I alive?” Vago asked, in his strained whine-growl voice.

  “Of course you are.”

  “But I was made. Ephemera says I can’t be alive.”

  He blew his lips derisively. “What does she know? It doesn’t matter that you were made. We’re all made. Made in women’s bellies. Just because you’re made of different stuff doesn’t make you any less alive.”

  Vago considered this.

  “But what were you made for?” Cretch mused. “That’s what I’m wondering. For someone to make something like you. They must have had a reason.”

  “Maybe I’m a toy,” Vago suggested.

  Cretch barked a laugh. “No. I know toys. You wouldn’t be much fun. Perhaps –”

  He got no further, for at that moment his pin slipped, and jabbed deeply into the dry flesh of Vago’s finger. Reflexively, the golem’s hand clenched, and the jewelled beetle was crushed to a ball of fibres in an instant.

  Cretch howled in anguish as Vago retreated to the back of the room, dread flooding him. He knew, with a child’s terror, that he had done something wrong. It didn’t matter that it didn’t seem to be his fault, that it was Cretch who had stabbed him with the needle. Vago would be punished anyway, the way children always got punished for adults” mistakes.

  And then Cretch was rising from his stool, picking up the knobbed walking-stick, turning wrathfully on the golem that cringed in the shadows.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” he said, his voice low. Then, quick as a snake, he brought up the walking stick and brought it crashing down on Vago’s wing. “Do you know what you’ve done?”