Skyland Read online

  Still turning the brown gloop, she looked over at him, squinting over the neck of her shirt. She didn't answer.

  "I'm not," said Harper. "I don't do it for them. The Sky takes care of Her own affairs."

  "And your father?"

  Abominations... enemies of the Sky... Harper swallowed. He closed his eyes, but his father's face, mouthing the words of the sermons, punctuated by his fist pounding the pulpit still burned in his mind.

  "My father is bitter like kale. He doesn't defend the Sky. He attacks the city people out of resentment, not justice. He acts out of hate rather than rightness. I will not fight for him."

  "Then, why are you doing what he says?"

  "I'm doing it for you."

  "No, Harper. Please don't tell me that–"

  "It may be the only way to save us." He gritted his teeth. A lifetime of a zealot's speeches and devotion to the Sky... Only the woman in front of him was certain. "You deserve a chance to escape this wretchedness." It is the only way.

  "You don't know that destroying the ships will give me that!"

  "But it might."

  "But you don't know!"

  "I know that the city is greedy and sucks resources from the farms. I know that I've lived my whole life on the ground and the Sky is not the place for living people. I know that Skyland flourished before the city was built and the city people multiplied."

  "Then let them leave."

  "And come back when the drought is ended and ruin our home again? No. Destroying them is our best hope to end this punishment and make this land livable again."

  "Our hope? I don't even think we have that if we build Skyland on the smoldering corpses of the city."

  Harper shook his head. He had chosen this road. It was not a certainty. But it was their only option. Destroying the ships that wrecked the heavens and begging the forgiveness of the Sky might not bring back the old days of Skyland, but it would end the new days. And the new days needed to end.

  It was the plan of the Sky Reverends, the plan of his father.

  Harper hated it. But he did not have a better one.

  He had chosen.

  Every summer, the plots of arable land shrank. Every summer, the buildings of the city grew taller. The country folk grew fewer as the young abandoned the farm life to seek better in the city. The city grew more as it absorbed the refugees from the country. The demands of the city grew with their population. And the plots of land grew even smaller.

  Even the kale was becoming scarce.

  The sun had sunk to the horizon.

  It was orange, like the fruits in the stories of the old Skyland. Harper had never seen any outside of mosaics. Only kale, some tubers hidden under the ground from the sun's angry heat, and a few strains of dark berries, bitter and shriveled things, had survived the years of drought.

  Fruits the color of the sun... they will grow again after the ships are gone.

  He repeated this to himself to quiet the dissenting shades in his mind, shades that whispered in Zara's voice. As he stared into the sun – he would not need to worry about his sight after today – his gut trembled. The orange globe started to slip below the edge of the world.

  "My Sky, it's time.

  Chapter Three

  in which there is water, but only a trickle...

  The horizon sucked the sun lower and lower and lower. Half of it was gone now. Harper kept his eyes ahead, watching the sun set and listening to his own life's clock tick down. They were walking west towards the city, to the expanse on its northwest side where the docks sat.

  The docks.

  The seat of the assault on the Sky.

  Heresy... heresy... Harper reminded himself.

  Again.

  He reminded himself, again, as he looked at the towering ships reaching up to the heavens, the very tips brushing the Sky Herself, he reminded himself of how wrong they all were. Just wrong.

  Monstrous contraptions. Trespassers in the Sky.

  The sun shone on the city, lighting up one side of the glass and steel metropolis with an orange fire. On the other side, the shadows hung long off the buildings.

  Abominations...

  He squinted at the towering sheets of glass of the city's tallest buildings, many reaching higher than the monstrous ships. The orange glare of the sun danced on the windows. The glittering surfaces threw the light back onto the smaller buildings, so that even at this distance Harper, when squinting, could see the squat clusters of older neighborhoods squeezed in between the new. And the giant facades were mirrors: old stone walls and tile roofs reflected in the glass, the glass reflected on the stone and the tile.

  It was beautiful.

  Wasteful constructions... Abominations... No better than the ships.

  He shook his head as if he could shake out the dissent.

  Zara's hand was in his. He squeezed it, but he could not look at her. She had come to see him off – to the bridge at the edge of the city, not any farther. Her presence made the long walk easier. In his peripheral vision he watched her dark hair, down to her waist, bobbing with each step. The tiny blue gem that never left her neck, the chip of sacred color, the marriage gift from the Sky Reverends, that gem was hidden under the long neck of her shirt. The neck hung down, like his, unnecessary now that they were away from the stench of the brown trenches. Unnecessary until the next dust storm, anyway.

  Harper would never need his again.

  He could not meet her eyes.

  So he stared at the sun instead.

  Behind them, several paces back walked his father. The old man hung back a respectful distance to give the young couple their space, but his angry muttering interspersed with cheerful whistling was far from unobtrusive. Harper didn't know which was worse.

  "My Sky..." Zara's voice whispered from his side.

  Her pace slowed then stopped.

  Finally, Harper turned and met her eyes, black pools under a film of unshed tears in a face the color of a cloud.

  The dark eyes were narrowed.

  She was not looking at him.

  He followed her gaze across the bridge, just ten feet away now, almost in the shadow of the city. The bridge that led from farmland to city spanned the river, now barely a creek at the bottom of a dried up chasm. But it was not the bridge that had caught Zara's eye.

  It was the man on the other side of it.

  Harper squinted and strained his eyes to be sure of what he was seeing. On both sides of the trickling river there were outlying buildings of the city and in the evening light they cast long shadows. In one of these shadows, nearly invisible, on the far side of the bridge, the man sat.

  The threads that covered his body barely resembled clothing. They ended in shreds at the elbows and knees. His feet were bare, and they, along with every inch of skin that showed under the rags of clothes, were weathered like kale burnt up in the sun. Ropes of matted hair, grainy with sandy soil, hung down into the dust. He crouched on the ground, eyes bent to his knees.

  He looked inattentive, almost asleep, if a person could sleep in such a position. But Harper couldn't hope that the man had not seen them.

  This was a scavenger.

  His eyes would be sharp as glass, and his ears keen.

  The scavengers were not friends of the farmers. They were the country folk not lucky enough to have a farm, or even have work on one. Hatred out of desperation, out of envy, and even out of the shame of charity had grown between the unfortunate farmers and the even less fortunate scavengers.

  "This close to the city?" Zara's voice shook.

  "They are getting desperate."

  Sometimes, these poorest of the country folk hunted in the fields, digging up inedible roots to sell for compost. Sometimes they roamed far out beyond even the brown trenches, hunting animals for meat and bone. Sometimes they looted the ancient sites, dead towns long buried in the sand and brought back wide beams or massive tree stumps sold at high prices for the rare wood. Sometimes, they just begged, wailing and
panhandling in the villages, relying grudgingly on the good will of the farmers and what little food they could spare.

  And rarely, when desperation coincided with boldness, they raided, kicking in doors, tearing every plank from houses, taking even the last crumbs off tables. And if there was anyone in the way, their flesh would make food or compost, and their bone fresh ivory.

  A scavenger this close to the city was desperate. And bold.

  "Harper.... what do we do? There's no time... "

  The river was almost dry, but it lay at the bottom of the ravine the water had carved before drought parched it. The only other bridge was on the south side of the city – a three hour walk away. The rocket would sail before they were halfway. And if he were after their bones, the scavenger would just follow them.

  They were almost in the shadow of the rockets now. Just a little further and they would be there.

  Harper's elbows rested against the pouches full of fertilizer sewn into his shirt pockets. The bulges were well hidden in the loose fabric, but the scavengers would know what the loose shirts of the country folk were usually used to hide.

  Sun coins and goods for trade.

  And we look like merchants.

  Harper and his father and Zara were not carrying traveling packs. Unlike those who would be carrying all their worldly possessions to the ship and off this planet (or so they thought), their family had taken the walk to the city empty-handed. Harper was uncomfortably aware that there was another type who would be taking to the docks today: the enterprising villagers. The farmers' bags would hold little of value to steal, but tucked away in the hidden pockets of village merchants, there could be a million Suns worth of jewel chips or fragments of wood and bone.

  He is waiting for the merchants. As if we have anything of value!

  Harper laughed.

  Zara looked sharply at him and he stifled the absurd giggle that was threatening to take him over. It was a nervous laugh, but also the shock that even here at his last moments when there was nothing left to his life, there was still someone who would pick that nothing clean.

  But even as he thought it, he knew that, compared to this beggar, he was a miser. The fertilizer concealed in his coat might as well be coins. And if nothing else, three bodies would feed a patch of soil or the beggar himself if he were hungry enough.

  "There are three of us," he said. "We'll go across."

  This was no defense. Harper knew it. Raiders did not rely on numbers. Their starved forms belied toughness and speed learned from surviving violently. But there was no other way.

  He stepped onto bridge. Zara held tight to his hand.

  Step by step they walked across, avoiding the eyes of the man squatted at the other end, but keeping him in the periphery.

  Then the man looked up.

  Before Harper could look away, he caught the eyes, crusty and bloodshot and oozing eye-pus. The scavenger snarled, and Harper tilted his head.

  Something about that face was familiar.

  How do I know you?

  Chapter Four

  in which there is water (for strangers!)

  Harper could not look away.

  Broken teeth looked out from between lips drawn back in a wordless threat. The narrowed eyes above the bared teeth were dusty with sand caught in the eyebrows, the eyelashes, the corners of the eyes, bloodshot and yellow.

  Don't stare.

  But Harper couldn't look away.

  The man twitched.

  Then he was up.

  Harper pushed Zara behind him as a fist, thin and sharp like a knife, slammed into his gut. Harper flailed his own fists about, useless and totally, totally clueless. His hands were trained for tearing heads of kale up from the ground, not for fighting. Another hit left him bent double, breathless. Then arms like bare steel beams clenched down on him in a headlock.

  He choked.

  Then the arms were gone.

  Off balance, Harper teetered, then his face thudded against the dirt as he fell. He turned his head to see the scavenger bounce against the ground five feet away. Literally. His tiny body hit the dust again and he rolled away. Harper looked up to see his father moving in on the prone man who picked his face up from the dirt and looked at them with a menace that sucked the air from Harper's lungs in a way the fists had not.

  Who are you?

  Tendons and muscles stuck out along the man's limbs and up his neck. It looked like the ropes of his body could have pulled him apart or snapped at any moment. The dry folds of his wrinkled skin clung weakly to the bones and quivered with his tension. Every phalange of the fingers that clawed the dirt stuck out, and Harper wondered how they stayed together. The reddened and oozing eyes glared at him.

  And Harper knew why that face was familiar.

  The man spat on the ground.

  Harper's father pulled back his foot, but the scavenger was faster than the kick. He jumped up and disappeared into the long shadows of the city.

  "Thank the Sky!" an unfamiliar voice called. "Are you alright?"

  Harper felt Zara's hands around his shoulders and he pushed himself up off the ground. He heard his father grunt in response to the strange voice, but Harper was still trying to catch his breath. He looked towards the newcomer. A woman stood on the bridge, halfway across, she was wringing her hands and her eyes were wide. Just in front of her, a man was jogging towards them across the bridge, sleeves rolled up, hands still in fists, ready to jump into the fight.

  He slowed to a walk then stopped beside them.

  "Looks like you're okay." He patted Harper.

  "Yeah, thanks."

  Beyond them, at the far end of the bridge almost in the country, in one of the outlying houses that surrounded the bridge, the front door stood open and another man stood in the doorway. Now the woman was trotting the rest of the way over the bridge, looking around timidly.

  "Thank the Sky you're alright!" She leaned against the man with the rolled up sleeves, and he put an arm around her. "Thank the Sky."

  Harper heard his father growling under his breath, "I didn't know they thanked the Sky this close to the city." He spat on the ground.

  The city folk did not seem to notice.

  "Please, would you like to come in?" the woman asked. She waved her hand over her shoulder towards the house at the other end of the bridge. "You must be so shaken. Come in and rest for a bit. Please."

  Harper looked automatically towards the docks and the ship that would leave soon. The sun was almost gone now. Zara squeezed his hand, and he looked down at her.

  "There is time," she whispered. "The ship won't leave for another hour."

  Harper nodded and looked back to the woman. "Yes, thank you."

  She beamed. "If you are going to the docks, we can all go together. It will be safer with six than with three."

  "Yes, thank you," echoed Zara. She looked up at Harper and her lips quivered, but she pulled them back into a smile.

  His father hissed, but Harper ignored him and followed the city folk back over the bridge.

  Inside the house, he paused.

  The main room was small and sparsely furnished. It was surprisingly simple and Harper was struck by how similar it looked to his own family's shack out in the village. The walls were almost bare and the room almost devoid of furniture. A single round table, not wood, but a decoratively cut metal piece, sat in the middle of the room and a few stools, similarly cut, sat around it.

  But there were some bigger differences.

  Thick curtains hung over what must have been a window on one wall. They blocked completely the lights from outside, unlike the ragged weave that covered the country shack's windows. But even though the curtains blocked the setting sun and the bright lights of the city, there was a nice glow around the whole room. Harper looked around and spotted the tiny light strips up where the walls met the ceiling. Then he noticed the weird squishiness under his feet and looked down to see a little brown rug just inside the door. Still looking at the fl
oor, he noticed that there actually was a floor to this house – a wooden (or some good imitation) floor rather than hard packed dirt. And there were doorways. Besides the one he was standing in, two doorways led off the main room: one in the right wall and one opposite that. This was no one-room shack.

  Harper moved further into the house, and Zara stepped in after him. He was still taking in all the details of the house, all the familiar and the unfamiliar things, when he turned to look through a doorway on his right.

  He twitched and jumped back a pace.

  He looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed, Zara was leaning in to listen to the other woman who was standing just inside the other doorway, which Harper could now see led to a tiny kitchen with an even tinier stove. His father was standing stubbornly and silently in the corner, arms crossed, scowling. The other two men were sitting together at the little table.

  Harper turned back to his right.

  Through the door wasn't a hall, but an open closet with a mirror. It was a large but simple piece on the back wall, almost covered by the clothes hung on hooks around it. Harper looked into the mirror. A part of his mind revolted at the luxury, whispered in his ear the words of the Sky Reverends: The Sky punishes the greed of the city.

  But this time he did not listen.

  This time, he looked out of his own eyes, looked at his own eyes, and did not shift in to the mask of the Sky Reverends.

  He stared at the reflection in the mirror.

  His face still bore the marks of shock with eyes wide and blank. This was not the reflection he usually saw. The reflection he usually saw, with eyebrows furrowed, mouth set in a grimace, jaw set, the carefully arranged features a copy of his father's, that reflection was gone.

  He had seen it in the face of the scavenger.

  The others chatted behind him, but he just stared at his reflection, seeing in his mind's eye another face, a face that he had put on so often he didn't know where it came from.

  It came from hate.

  The Sky Reverends'.

  The scavenger's.

  A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped again.