Scarecrow

Wren stayed.

I’d known she would. I’d seen her face on the ridge, when the line came in. Tamsin coming. Corr coming with Tamsin. Somebody had to be on the F-eleven ridge when they got there, eight days’ walk from the north, and somebody had to flash here every dawn so they could find it, and that somebody had been Wren for a year and a half and wasn’t going to stop being Wren now just because a boy had turned up in a spoon.

”Go home,” she said. ”Take Ezra. Fix your kit’s roof or whatever it is kits need. I’ll bring them to you.”

”Forty-one kilometers,” I said. ”Through the green.”

”I’ve walked through the green before.”

”With Tamsin and Corr?”

”With a man with a broken knee on my back,” said Wren. ”Twice.” She looked at me with her quick dry eyes. ”I’ll flash every dawn. You’ll see it from your tower, if your tower’s as tall as you keep saying.”

”Four hundred and eight meters.”

”Then you’ll see it,” said Wren.

Holt didn’t want to go either.

”I’ve been on this ridge a year,” he said, from the frame, with his new knee out straight in Dot’s titanium splints. ”I’m not leaving her on her own on it.”

”Ezra,” said Wren.

”I’m not.”

”Ezra. You can’t walk. You can’t climb. You can’t get up to the line without four hands and a kit carrying you. If the Teeming come, you’re a sack of potatoes I have to drag into a cleft.” She folded her arms. ”Go to his town. Lie in a bed with a roof over it. Get that leg strong. And then come back and be useful.”

Holt looked at her for a long time.

”When did you get so bossy?” he said.

”About a week after I found you,” said Wren. ”At the bottom of a gully. Flashing your own number.”

So we left her there. Standing at the top of the wheat, with her knife and her mirror and seven terraces of gold behind her, watching us go back down into the valley and past the broken dome and east, into the gray green.

I looked back from the spoon, once, at the top of the first rise.

She’d already turned round. She was walking up the slope toward her cleft with her back very straight, the way Luna walked.

I didn’t look back again.

We came home on Day 341.

Holt saw the tower from twenty kilometers out. He didn’t say anything. He just lay on the frame with his hands folded on his chest and watched it get bigger, the whole way, the iron lattice going up and up out of the canyon into the green sky, until we came over the rim and he could see the rest. The wall. The terraces. The seventy-four little round windows. The dome. The forge on its iron floor. Fourteen hands on the wall, every one of them still where Dot had left it.

”Trevor would’ve liked this,” he said at last. Very quietly.

I didn’t trust myself to answer that. So I didn’t.

”The lighthouse is lit,” said Dot.

The fourth comms window had opened while we were at F-eleven.

Dot told me that night, in the dome, standing in the doorway with the little rivers running very slowly. She’d been waiting to tell me, I think, until Holt was asleep.

”Command asked for squad status,” she said. ”Command did not ask for the operator. Command asked: what is the status of squad member Calder, Liam.” A pause. ”This unit answered accurately. This unit said: Liam Calder is alive. Liam Calder is at Scarecrow.”

I didn’t say anything.

”Command said: acknowledged.” A pause. ”Command said nothing else.”

The little rivers ran.

”Query,” said Dot. ”Should this unit not have answered?”

”No,” I said. ”You had to. It’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right. I knew it wasn’t. Two operators at one base. Squad-level contact suspended. Protocol. Somewhere far above us, on a ship in the dark, someone had written that down.

But it wasn’t Dot’s fault. And she’d told me first.

”This unit told the operator first,” said Dot, as if she’d heard me think it.

”I know,” I said. ”Thank you.”

I counted that night, from the top of the tower.

I’d started doing it from up there, before Liam. It was the highest place on Avalon I could get to. Four hundred and eight meters, with the canyon dropping away under my feet and the whole country spread out below me, gray and green and silver in the starlight, and the wind coming up the iron lattice with a long low hum. I went up in the spoon and sat on the little platform at the very top, beside the copper mast, and shut my eyes.

Luna’s snowflake. North, and west. A hundred and seventy miles now. Still walking.

Toby’s fork. High in the mountains. Still.

Liam’s buckle. Asleep in the dome below me, in a boot by the bed, where he kept it now.

And Seraphina’s clasp. Sixty miles east.

Still.

It had been still for forty days.

I’d counted it every one of them. Every night, from the dome, from the hut, from the cave with Liam, from the spoon on a tor in the dark. Sera, still. And every night I’d told myself something different about it. She’d landed hard. She’d hurt herself and was resting, the way Liam had. She’d found something worth building on and was building. She was sulking, because Luna had told her to stay put and Sera hated being told.

Liam said sulking. Liam always said sulking. I think it was easier for him than the other things.

I hadn’t gone. That was the truth of it. I’d gone north to Liam, because Liam had clicked for help, and then west to Wren, because Wren had wheat. And all that time, sixty miles east, the clasp had sat in the same place, not moving, not calling, and I’d counted it every night and written still in the notebook and not gone.

Lighthouses don’t walk.

I’d walked for Liam. I’d walked for Wren. I’d told F-five I was coming north.

I sat at the top of the tower with my eyes shut and the clasp sixty miles east, very faint, and felt sick.

I opened my eyes.

And the eastern horizon was on fire.

Not on fire. That was what I thought, the first second. That the whole edge of the world, out past the rim, out past the rolling red rock, had gone up in flames.

But it wasn’t the edge of the world. It was one place. A point, far away on the dark line where the land met the sky. And out of it, going straight up, a column.

White at the bottom. Blue in the middle. Gold at the top, where it spread out into the low clouds and lit them from underneath like a lamp under a sheet. Perfectly straight. Not flickering. Not leaning in the wind. A pillar of fire, going up from the edge of the world into the sky, so tall I could see it from sixty miles away, so steady it might have been drawn with a ruler.

It held for about a minute.

Then it went out.

I didn’t remember coming down the tower. I remember the spoon, and the iron lattice going past very fast, and the bottom of the canyon coming up, and Dot’s fifth arm catching the rim of the spoon before it hit the red glass. And then I was in the dome, in the second room, shaking Liam.

”Liam. Liam.”

”Up?” said Liam, before he was awake, and his hands lit.

”No. East. Come outside. Now.”

He came. On the crutch, in his socks, swearing. Holt was awake too, on the next bed, propped up on his elbows. Dot was already in the doorway.

We stood on the red glass outside the dome with our faces to the east, and waited.

It came again eleven minutes later.

The same place. The same point on the dark line of the horizon, sixty miles away. The same pillar, white and blue and gold, going straight up into the clouds and lighting them from beneath. Perfectly straight. Perfectly still. Held there, the way you’d hold a candle very steady in a room with no wind.

Liam made a sound.

I looked at him. His face, in the light from sixty miles away, had gone white.

”That’s Sera,” he said.

”How do you know?”

”Because it’s straight,” said Liam. ”Look at it. Nobody’s fire goes straight. Mine doesn’t. Dad’s doesn’t. Fire wants to move. It wants to lean and flicker and go where the air goes.” His voice cracked. ”Sera’s doesn’t. Sera’s goes exactly where she tells it. She held sixteen candles still on a birthday cake once so the wax wouldn’t run. Sixteen. Without even looking.”

The pillar held. A minute. Then it went out.

”That’s Sera,” said Liam again. ”And she’s not sulking.”

We watched it all night.

Every eleven minutes, at first. Up out of the dark on the eastern horizon, white and blue and gold, straight as a ruler, for a minute. Then gone. Then eleven minutes of nothing. Then again.

Liam sat on the red glass with his crutch across his knees and counted the minutes on his fingers. He didn’t say anything. His hands weren’t lit. They were very still, and very white at the knuckles.

At about two, it changed.

Twelve minutes. Then fourteen. Then, at a quarter to three, nineteen. And when it came at a quarter to three, it wasn’t quite straight. Near the top, where it spread into the clouds, it leaned. Only a little. A finger’s width, from sixty miles away.

Liam saw it lean and stood up.

”Dot,” I said. ”A wing. East. As fast as it’ll go. I want to see.”

”Logged,” said Dot.

The wing went up out of the canyon with its high soft whine and turned east and was gone into the dark.

”How long?” said Liam.

”One hundred kilometers,” said Dot. ”The wing travels at sixty kilometers per hour in still air. There is a headwind.” A pause. ”Two hours. Then the picture must come back. The wing cannot send so far. It must return.”

”Four hours,” said Liam.

”Approximately four hours,” said Dot. ”This unit is sorry.”

Holt had come out onto the red glass on two of Dot’s hands. He sat against the wall of the dome with his new knee out straight and watched the pillar come and go, come and go, without saying anything, for a long time.

”Who taught her that?” he said at last. ”To hold it like that.”

”Nobody,” said Liam. ”She just does it. She always has. Since she was little.”

”It’s a signal,” said Holt.

We both looked at him.

”Eleven minutes,” said Holt. ”Regular as a clock, at the start. You don’t do that by accident. You don’t do that because you’re fighting. When you’re fighting, you burn when they come, and you stop when they stop. You don’t burn every eleven minutes for six hours.” He looked at the horizon. ”She’s not fighting with that. She’s talking with it. Same as Wren’s mirror. Only it’s dark, and she hasn’t got a mirror, and she’s got the one thing that can be seen sixty miles off at night.”

”Talking to who?”

”Whoever’s looking,” said Holt. ”She doesn’t know. That’s the point.”

The wing came back at twenty past six. Green light over the eastern rim. Liam was on his feet before it had cleared the edge of the canyon.

Dot took it in her fifth arm and held it against her grille, and the screen I wore on my wrist lit up.

A ridge.

Long and high and narrow, standing up out of rolling green country like the back of an animal. And along the top of it, wrapped round it, glittering in the dawn, walls.

Not stone. Not iron. Glass. Thick glass, green-black and gold, poured and fused, standing up in sheets and curves and buttresses along the whole crest of the ridge, as if someone had taken the rock itself and melted it and pulled it up into a fortress with their hands. In places it had run down the sides of the ridge in long frozen rivers. In places it was cracked and blackened and patched with newer glass, brighter, rougher, poured in a hurry.

And round the bottom of the ridge, in the green, in a ring, all the way round, the Teeming.

Not twelve. Not three hundred and eighty.

I couldn’t count them. The wing’s picture wasn’t good enough and they were too close together. A dark band, three and four deep, all the way round the base of the ridge, very still, the way they sat when they were measuring. And in places, all up the sides of the ridge, against the glass walls, black shapes, burned, curled up, dead. Hundreds of them. Lying where they’d fallen.

And at the very top of the ridge, in the middle of the glass, on a little flat place where the walls came together, a figure.

Small. Sitting down. With its back against a slab of glass and its head down on its knees.

Red hair.

Liam made a sound I’d never heard him make.

Then he turned round and started walking. On his crutch. East. Across the red glass toward the gate. In his socks.

”Liam.”

He didn’t stop.

”Liam,” I said. ”It’s a hundred kilometers.”

”I know how far it is.”

”You’ll be three days on that leg. You’ll be a week.”

”Then I’ll be a week.”

”This unit can carry Liam,” said Dot. ”On the frame. As before. Two days.”

Liam stopped.

He stood very still on the red glass in his socks, with his back to us, and his shoulders shaking, and his hands lit now, both of them, white, so hot the glass under his feet started to smoke.

”Two days,” he said. ”Two days.”

”Approximately,” said Dot. ”This unit is sorry. This unit cannot walk faster than its legs.”

”Go,” said Holt.

We all looked at him.

”Go,” he said again. ”All of you. The kit too. I’ll keep your lamp lit.”

”You can’t walk,” I said.

”I couldn’t walk on F-four, either, for the last two months. I held it.” Holt looked up at the tower. ”I’ve got a wall. I’ve got fourteen of her hands. I’ve got a granite cave forty kilometers north that you’ve told me about twice. And I’ve got the best view on this planet, if one of those hands’ll carry me up that thing.” He looked at me. ”I was holding ridges before your father met your mother, boy. Go and get his girl.”

”She’s not my—” said Liam, and stopped, because he’d heard what Holt had said, and it wasn’t your girl. It was his girl. Mine.

He didn’t say anything else. Neither did I. My face was very hot.

”Go,” said Holt.

We left at seven.

Dot in front. Six hands with the frame. Liam on it, sitting up, with his boot in his lap and his hands lit and his face turned east like a compass needle. Three wings behind. And me in the spoon, ten meters up, in front.

I’d never flown so far so fast. I’d never asked the bucket for so much. I held the spoon up over the rolling red rock and then over the green with my nose running and my eyes stinging and the clasp sixty miles east, faint, still, very small, and I didn’t care. I just held it, and went.

”Up,” said Liam, every half hour. In a voice like a wire.

”Up’s clear.”

”In front?”

”In front’s clear.”

”Behind is clear,” said Dot.

The pillar came that night. Day 342.

Not every eleven minutes. Every forty. And not straight. It leaned, near the top, every time, and the gold where it met the clouds was thinner. Weaker. Like a lamp running out of oil.

We’d come fifty kilometers. Half.

We stopped on a tor, because Dot’s hands had to rest and so did I. Liam didn’t sleep. He sat on the frame on the top of the rock with his face to the east, and every time it came, he said, very quietly, ”There,” and every time it went, he said nothing.

At three in the morning, it didn’t come.

Forty minutes. An hour.

Liam didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. His hands were lit, very low, a red glow in the dark on the top of the tor, like coals.

An hour and a half.

I sat in the spoon with my eyes shut and found the clasp. Sixty miles from the tower; thirty, now, from the tor. Still. Exactly where it had been for forty-one days.

Still there.

That’s all the clasp could tell me. Where it was. Not whether the hand that had worn it was warm.

At ten to five, just before the green came up over the east, it came.

Short. Not a pillar. A flare. A spurt of gold, low on the horizon, leaning hard to the side, there and gone in a few seconds.

But it came.

Liam let out a breath I think he’d been holding for an hour and a half.

”Lucas,” he said.

”I know.”

”No. Lucas.” He turned round on the frame. His face was wet. ”You’re faster than us. You’re faster than Dot. You’ve been holding back all day so you don’t leave us behind. I’ve watched you do it.”

”Okafor said—”

”I don’t care what Okafor said. Okafor’s not here. My sister’s there.” He pointed east, at the place where the flare had been. ”Go. Go. Dot’s got me. Dot’s got up and behind and under. Go and get there first.”

I looked at Dot.

The little rivers ran.

”This unit has Liam,” said Dot. ”This unit has up and behind and under.” A pause. ”The operator has in front. The operator should go in front.”

So I went.

Alone, in the spoon, at dawn, east, as fast as the bucket would go. Twenty meters up, so the wind was behind me. Looking down into the pale gray bowl between my knees and feeling for one grain of iron in a clasp thirty miles ahead, and holding, and holding, and going.

I don’t remember most of it. I remember the green going past underneath, silver at the tops, turning toward me as I went, a long ripple behind me like a wake. I remember my nose bleeding onto the scarf, and wiping it, and it bleeding again. I remember thinking about Genny, and the promise. Never lie to Genny. I remember thinking that if I got there and the hand that had worn the clasp was cold, I’d have to write it down, because I’d promised to write everything down, and I didn’t know how I would.

And I remember coming over the last rise at about eleven in the morning, with the sun high and the sky very green, and seeing it.

The ridge.

Long and high and narrow, standing up out of the green like the back of an animal, exactly as it had been in the wing’s picture. The glass walls along the crest, green-black and gold, glittering. The frozen rivers of melted rock running down the sides. The black burned shapes against the walls, hundreds of them.

And the ring.

Round the bottom of the ridge. In the green. Four deep, five, all the way round. Still. Measuring. More of them than I’d ever seen in one place. More than the ring of three hundred and eighty at Scarecrow. More than I could count.

All of them facing up the ridge. Toward the top.

And at the top, on the little flat place where the walls came together, the figure had got up.

She was standing. Barely. With one hand on the glass wall beside her, holding herself up. Her red hair was matted and black with smoke. Her suit was burned through at the shoulders. Her other hand was out in front of her, low, palm down, over the edge of the wall, and there was fire coming off it. Not a pillar. Not anything like a pillar. A thin gold sheet, wavering, leaning, held out over the first of the Teeming that had started to climb.

And it was going out.

Day 339–343.

Wren stayed on the F-11 ridge to bring Tamsin and Corr in. ”I’ll flash every dawn. You’ll see it from your tower.”

Home Day 341. Holt: ”Trevor would’ve liked this.”

Fourth comms window: Command asked about Liam. Dot answered: alive, at Scarecrow. Command: acknowledged. Nothing else.

Sera’s clasp. Still, forty days. I counted it and didn’t go.

Then: a pillar of fire on the eastern horizon. Straight as a ruler. Liam: ”Nobody’s fire goes straight. Sera’s goes exactly where she tells it.”

Holt: ”She’s not fighting with that. She’s talking.”

Every 11 minutes. Then 19. Then 40. Then leaning. Then nothing for an hour and a half. Then a flare.

The wing: a ridge, walled in glass. Hundreds dead against the walls. A ring at the bottom, more than I can count. A girl at the top with her head on her knees.

Holt: ”Go and get his girl.” He meant mine. Nobody said anything.

Liam: ”You’re faster. Go.”

Dot: ”The operator has in front. The operator should go in front.”

Day 343, 11 a.m. The ridge. She’s standing. Barely.

The fire is going out.