Chapter 73:

There was nothing. Nothing Mayah could use to bridge the gap, and nothing to explain the cloud of smoke below. All that was near her was boulder after boulder, each one bare and too big for her to move on her own. Boulder after boulder, all the way down the southern mountains to the bio-dome’s valley, where the smoke billowed and blew up and up into the sky.

Slowly, Mayah sat down on one of the boulders still on the plateau. The gorge was off to her right; the valley was way down below to her left. She didn’t know what to do. She sat in the bright clear sunlight, feeling achy and shivery. The cloud of smoke was still thick and dark, even as it rose up into the sky and drifted west. Maybe the fire was because of rioters again? Maybe Sukren was with them? Maybe he was hurt?

Maybe it’s because of me?

Mayah got to her feet. She blushed, embarrassed by the very thought. Who was she that anything would happen because of her? Yet… yet… still, it wasn’t just that Mayah wanted to believe there was something special about her, something that would explain why Sukren had hidden his life from her. The fact of the matter was, she was different. Very different. She just didn’t know why.

Then it hit her. The bio-dome was on fire. It was on fire. What was she doing, thinking this way and that about how different she was or wasn’t? The bio-dome was on fire! Sukren and Lainla and Tanush and everybody else was caught down there in the middle of a fire!

Grabbing her pack, Mayah raced to the plateau’s edge where the rocky descent down the southern mountains began. Then she paused and looked back at the lip of the gorge.

I’ll come back, she promised herself. I did it once, I can do it again. I’ll come back. I’ll come back, I’ll come back, and I’ll cross that gap, I swear it!

***

Moved both by anxiety and gravity, Mayah found the downhill trek went much faster than her journey up had. She covered the same ground in half a week’s time, reaching by the end of darkwake the ridge where the western and southern mountains jutted into each other.

She paused there to rest. Exhausted and filthy, her foot swelling from being banged against a rock on her way down, Mayah wanted nothing more than to fling herself onto the rubber mat the Jinkari had given her to sleep on inside their lodge. Even in the darkness though, Mayah could see the smoke still billowing up on both sides of the mountain range ahead, right in between the Cursed urb and the castra-dome.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

There was nothing to do but press on. Holding her breath, she limped across the mountain ridge to the castra-dome’s limestone shell platform. Every breathflower vine on it was charred ash; some of the shining blossoms were still aflame. But when she looked down the chute into the smoking ruins of the castra-dome, she saw that it was empty. Nobody, not even a single dead body, was inside it.

***

When Sukren came to, he was lying curled up on his side. He felt someone kick him. “Get up. Get up.”

Sukren tried to get to his feet. His wrists and ankles were tied though, so he could only pull himself up into a sitting position. But why was he tied up? He leaned back and felt stone against the back of his head. He tried to open his eyes. His eyes.

“Get up!”

Memory returned to him, along with a rush of dizziness. Ihan – the Xhota man – looking for Mayah – his eyes –

Sukren found himself breathing rapid, shallow breaths. His mind felt numb; his skin was clammy. He felt the bonds at his ankles and wrists cut loose. Sensation returned to his limbs all at once. At the same time, he was hauled to his feet by unseen hands. Sukren staggered forward, then stopped. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know where he was going.

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Someone – Ihan – shoved him forward. After a few shuffling steps, Sukren’s outreached hands touched a hitching post. Rope bridge, rope bridge, that was right, there was a rope bridge. By feel Sukren worked his way across, clinging to the ropes so tightly that it felt like he was squeezing blood from his hands with each grip.

When he reached the platform on the other side, he stumbled, his feet unready for the change from rope to limestone shell. He had to drop to his hands and knees to be able to fumble his way down the rope ladder to solid ground. Once he was back on two feet, he heard nearby the sounds of people cursing and crying out. A hand shoved Sukren towards the sounds; he stumbled again, tripping on loosened soil. His fall was stopped by a strong hand. The owner of the hand said something in Cursed, but Sukren didn’t understand him.

“Rajani?” Sukren tried, his throat catching as he spoke.

“No talking,” a voice snapped in Xhom. “Get in line. We’re moving.”

Sukren was prodded forward. He could feel flakes of limestone and bark rubbing up against his right arm. Shelterbelt? Was that where he was? He couldn’t think. Someone took his hand and put it on a tree trunk, pulling on it as if he wanted Sukren to climb. Invisible fingers helped him up, then down the other side. Then it was back to moving forward again. Someone – was it the same person who’d helped him before? – took his hand and guided him.

They walked. Sukren couldn’t focus, couldn’t figure out where they were. More than once he felt like he was going to collapse back into unconsciousness. When they finally stopped, and someone pulled on his arm to indicate that he should sit, he thanked every god he knew.

Sitting was much better. Sukren was able to gather himself. He tried to wipe the blood off his face, disliking the stickiness on his cheeks. He heard someone call his name; he turned his face towards the voice. He heard a gasp. A hand touched his arm. “What happened?”

“Rajani?”

“Yes, what –”

A thought pushed itself to the forefront of Sukren’s mind. “Where’s Mayah?”

“I don’t know. They took the children first, all the young ones, all the ones they didn’t kill –” A sob entered Rajani’s voice. For several moments she didn’t speak. Sukren listened quietly to her ragged breathing.

“I have to go,” she finally said. “They took the children first and said we wouldn’t see them again unless we came with them to the pens. I have to go find out where they are now.”

“Pens?” Sukren echoed.

He heard Rajani take another ragged breath. “They’ve got us inside some bazaar stalls,” she said. “With barbed bioplastic strands all around the posts to keep us in here.”

Slowly Sukren was able to piece together what had happened. The Xhota had raided the Cursed. They were captives now. The walk he had just done had to have been through the Xhota urb. And the climb, that had to have been the gap in the shelterbelt.

Sukren moved his arm, trying to see how close he was to a post. He accidentally bumped into Rajani and felt her flinch.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“They broke my arm,” she said. “I’ve got a sling, but it’s not looking good.”

“I can help with that,” Sukren said automatically. Then he stopped. Without sight, without tools, without medicine, what could he do?

It was starting to hit Sukren that he was truly blind. Not the faintest sensation of light reached his optic nerves. When he felt Rajani rise, her knee lifting from where it had been pressing into his leg, Sukren felt a strange panic. Don’t go, he wanted to say. Don’t leave me here in the dark. Don’t take the light away.

It was like he was in a cage, not one with bars, but solid, covered in a black shroud. On the other side was reality, a world of sight and light. Holy Sarana! Had he not spent enough of his life in a cage, in one damn cage after another?

Rajani was gone. Sukren felt someone press a bulb into his hand. He removed the stopper and lifted it to his lips. The water eased his aching head. But the rest of his pains were growing stronger. His eyes were burning. His wrists were aching. The indents in his skin around his ankles were throbbing. He felt aware of his flesh in a way he hadn’t known was possible.

He wanted to get up and help Rajani find Mayah and the other children. But he didn’t know where to go, and not only was his exhaustion returning to him in full force, so was a deep sense of shock. It pushed him to stay where he was. To sink into himself. To let the darkness pull him in deeper.

Distantly, he wondered who else had died. Then he wondered what his own chances of survival were now. The Golden Castle permitted no disabilities among serfs.

At that, Sukren found himself almost laughing. The Council would have never authorized a raid on the Cursed. The fact that the Xhota had raided them meant the Uprising had happened. That there was no more Golden Castle to fear.

Victory, Sukren thought. At last.