Say, say, what shall I say?
The cat came out, he wants to play.
Do, do, what shall I do?
The cat will bite him quite in two.
Winter burst into the room while Auspex was still making preparations to leave. “We all are in danger.” She paused only a moment to catch her breath, but her sentences still came out in choppy bursts. “I just heard from my informants. Yesterday’s rally was reported. Boggen’s henchmen are on their way here even as we speak.” She looked at Wren before grabbing a stack of papers off a crowded desk in the corner and shoving them into a bag. “They have specific orders to take into custody a girl with your description.”
Auspex looked at her curiously. “Boggen knows what you look like?”
“He knows.” Wren shared a panicky glance with Simon. “We have to get out of here.”
“Of course,” Auspex said, moving with fluid grace to gather his own pack. “Boggen’s men will not track us where we are going.”
“Good,” Winter said, shutting her bag with a snap. “You take the children. I will remain here. Every neighborhood deserves to hear the truth about Boggen’s research no matter the cost. We must act now,” she said fervently. “Before Boggen can gather his strength and shut us down. If we can’t hold rallies, we’ll get the information out some other way.”
“I’ll stay, too,” Vulcan said in a firm voice, and when Winter seemed about to protest, he cut her off. “I can help! The other Scavengers, too. We know every rooftop in the city and are welcomed by law in every marketplace. If you need to get information to people, we’re your crew.” He looked determined. “Most of us have had family members disappear in the last few years.” He clenched his jaw. “Now we know why.”
There was a pounding on the door, and the sound of harsh voices demanding entrance.
“They’re here!” Winter shot a wide-eyed glance at Auspex. “The back door!”
But before they reached it, they could hear Boggen’s soldiers banging on it as well. Wren reached for Simon’s hand. They were trapped.
“Is there a rooftop exit?” Vulcan asked, and no sooner had he said the words than Winter was leading the way up a crooked stairwell to a narrow area crowded with chimney pipes. From far below, they heard the sound of breaking glass as the soldiers began to force their way in.
“We part ways here,” Auspex said, scanning the rooftops that sprawled in front of them. “The city wall is not far, and you two must go in the opposite direction. Courage and Honor.”
“Courage and Honor,” Winter said to Auspex, and gave Wren and Simon a salute before turning to go. Vulcan paused in front of Wren, hesitating, but then Winter hissed at him over her shoulder. “If you’re coming with me, Scavenger, you come now.”
And with a quick smile, Vulcan was gone. The tiny flash of disappointment Wren felt soon disappeared in the face of the daunting task of following Auspex over the rooftops. He was faster than any Scavenger, navigating gaps between buildings with ease and expecting Simon and Wren to follow suit. Soon, they had left the townhouse far behind, and, after pausing to listen carefully, Auspex pronounced that they were far enough away to return to the streets. “We need to cross the river before we reach the wall,” he explained, shimmying down a gas pipe like a monkey.
It was early, and only a few people were out on the streets. Cleaning women on their way to assignments with brooms and mops over one shoulder. Magicians streaming toward the mills where scavenged goods were repurposed. Deliverymen on their rounds. But so far, no soldiers. Auspex set a steady pace. The ever-present rain made even the pearly morning light wet and damp. The smell of fresh-baked bread steamed out of storefronts, and the children who sold newspapers were already out with stacks of freshly printed paper tucked into their bags.
“Boggen hunts for a crew wanted for crimes against the state,” the nearest urchin shouted, and the shrill pitch of his voice made Wren wince. “The Knave of Hearts and two Outsider escapees. Reward offered.”
She and Simon pushed past, but Auspex stopped and took a news roll, handing the paperboy a fat coin. “Keep the change,” he said, causing the boy’s eyes to grow round with disbelief.
“Do you know who the Knave is?” Wren asked, as they made their way down the street.
Auspex skimmed the paper as they walked. “I don’t know the Knave personally,” he said, turning a page. “But the name is respected among the Outsiders, not least because anyone whom Boggen wants that badly is a friend to us.” He pointed to a sketch on the front page, and Wren’s heart sank. The artist had clearly portrayed Auspex’s profile, and the other supposed escaped Outsider looked exactly like Wren.
“That’s a good likeness of you,” Simon said politely over her shoulder, and Wren nearly jumped. Her nervousness had almost disappeared, but now she felt hunted, as if every face around her was sure to recognize her picture and start calling out for Boggen’s soldiers.
“Perhaps the Outsiders will welcome you after all,” Auspex said with a smile. He appeared calm, but he doubled his pace after this, leaving Wren to straggle along behind, nervous and out of breath.
The farther they went, the more crowded the streets grew, which made Wren feel a little bit better. She kept her head down and darted after Auspex and Simon. Suddenly, the movement of the morning traffic slowed to a stop, and Wren could hear the sound of a commotion up ahead.
“Wait here,” Auspex ordered. With an easy movement, he clambered up the brick wall so that he could see above the crowd. “A blockade,” he said. “More of Boggen’s soldiers.”
After doubling back and clambering through a narrow alley filled with refuse bins, they finally drew near the river. The smell of garbage mixed with the odor of fish. Canalboats drifted past, and so did the small canoes that served as river taxis. Auspex hired one of these.
“Say nothing,” Auspex whispered as they climbed onto the boat, with a meaningful look at the pilot. Wren perched precariously in the middle, Simon behind her, as the pilot poled them down the canal. Their silence gave Wren the opportunity to observe the city around her. They passed by buildings that must have once been brightly colored but were now weathered by the elements.
She knew that Nod had thousands of Magicians living in it, but now she saw that they were more than just Magicians—they were people, too. A mother stood on a balcony, hanging up laundry as two small children played at her feet. Older kids chased dogs on the waterfront, their happy laughter making her suddenly homesick. Or Earthsick. She wondered what her life would have been like if she had been born on Nod. The food was odd, of course, and the customs and clothing looked like a strange mishmash of history and sci-fi, but there were people here. People who lived and died at the mercy of Boggen.
The boat angled toward a lonely-looking dock. Auspex paid the pilot, and Simon clambered out onto the weathered boards, one hand extended.
Wren grabbed his hand, but as she followed after him she felt a sense of foreboding. The other parts of the city might be crowded or dingy. They might be weathered by the elements or not as well-kept as some neighborhoods, but the area where they now stood was nothing like even the shabbiest of the places she had seen. Wren instinctively squeezed Simon’s hand as she looked at the bleakness around her.
“What happened here?”
The buildings, or what was left of them, were scorched with black stains. She could see through some entirely, where interior walls lay in shambles. And others stretched halfway up and then abruptly stopped. Refuse and clumps of forgotten papers had gathered in the gutters. The whole place had the feel of a forgotten ghetto.
Auspex replied in a whisper, even though the pilot was long out of earshot. “The plague happened.” He took out a piece of fabric and began to unroll it. “Boggen will have to push his soldiers hard to follow us here.” A faded map was painted on the fabric, and Auspex traced a route with his finger. “They had to quarantine the neighborhood and burn it to stop the plague’s spread, and the superstitious folk in the city still suspect that it is tainted.”
“That’s horrible,” Wren said. Any relief she felt at hearing that they had escaped Boggen’s soldiers evaporated at the thought of exposure to the plague.
“Thousands died.” The fabric hung limply in Auspex’s hands. “Young and old alike. It was unstoppable.”
“Was it viral or bacterial?” Simon asked, and for all his being in observation mode, his voice was reverent.
“Viral?” Auspex said, as though tasting a new word. “I don’t know what you mean, but it spread like fire.” He pointed to the blackened surfaces. “And fire was the only thing that stopped it.” He paused ominously. “If it really ever stopped.”
“What started it?” Wren asked.
“What do you think?” Auspex shook his head. “Stardust.” He nearly spit the word. “You know what the colony was escaping. Years of civil war on Earth. Fighting against what they saw as too many restrictions on the use of magic.” He sat down on a piece of broken stone. “Factions sprang up. Magicians argued about how best to use the stardust.” He sighed. “Mother Goose was the leader of the most progressive. She said that a new planet with new life had new potential.” He spread his arms out wide. “This used to be her part of the city—her launching place for expeditions into the wilderness.”
Wren looked at the broken buildings and the refuse. “Was there an explosion?”
“Worse.” Auspex studied his hands. “A mutation.” He glanced up at them, and the fierce anger in his eyes frightened Wren. “Mother Goose’s crew set no limits on their experiments. Everything was fair game. And since they had no qualms tampering with human life, do you think they cared about alien life? Her Beautiful Creatures, she called them.” He lifted his gaze to the burned-out tops of the laboratories. “Half animal, half machine. They rebelled. And the animachines destroyed the outpost settlements. The city dwellers built their wall to protect themselves.”
“Animachines?” Simon asked, so astonished that his pencil and notebook fell useless at his sides.
“Indeed. And worse even than rampaging monsters, the stardust grew tainted, mutated not to enhance life but to kill it.” He rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between them. “Many good Magicians perished destroying that strain of stardust.” His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Small consolation that Mother Goose herself perished in the final efforts at containment.” He sighed. “It came at the cost of thousands of lives, and the animachines were even harder to stop.”
Wren didn’t know what to say. What a horrible history!
Auspex glanced up at her, his bushy eyebrows raised. “In the end, we could not destroy them. Containment alone was the key.” He got to his feet, stretching his arms behind his back. “The remaining factions united to construct the wall. They never venture outside it.”
“You mean . . .” Wren began, feeling her heart begin to pound.
“Yes,” Auspex said, and his words were grave. “The animachines are still out there. Multiplying, evolving over the years. They are the only true predator of humans on this planet.” He barked a short laugh. “And we created them. We were handed a heaven and we turned it into a living hell.”
Wren was only half listening. She was remembering what Vulcan had said about dying a horrible death outside the walls.
“Will we see some of these animachines?” Simon slipped his red notebook back into his pocket and coolly pulled out his green one. “Outside the wall?”
“Aye,” Auspex said, remembering the fabric map in his hands. He pointed to a spot marked with an X in the lower corner. “The wall was constructed as a permanent safety precaution. No need to go in or out. But one of Mother Goose’s crew members thought differently. He secretly cut a passageway so he could pass back and forth unnoticed. He believed that the animachines could be reformed, that they would evolve to be compatible with human life, and for some years he traveled to and from the abandoned research outposts to continue his work.”
“So what happened to him?” Wren asked as Auspex folded the fabric and set off down what must have once been a road.
“He learned otherwise.”
Wren didn’t ask any more questions, nor did Auspex speak again until they came to the wall itself. Up close, Wren could see that unlike the other buildings on Nod, which were constructed of clay bricks or wood, this was made of a dark stone that reminded her of lava rock back on Earth, and interwoven through it all was the sheen of stardust.
The door itself was little more than a filthy grate wedged in between the street and the wall. Auspex bent to unscrew it, and Wren reviewed her options. Was it too late to change her mind? To return to the Nest with Vulcan and come up with a different plan? She knew it was futile. The other Alchemists were counting on her. The Outsiders were her best chance of rescuing them, not to mention helping the prisoners and finding Robin. She watched as Auspex lifted the rusted piece of metal, strings of wet plant matter dangling from the grate. She tried not to think of what the mutant animachines would be like, tried not to wonder if she’d ever be back within the walls again. As she stooped to enter the dank hole, she felt for the pouch of stardust around her neck. She might not be able to wield it properly, but it was there. And that thought gave her a sliver of hope. After they had all passed through, Auspex replaced the grate and lit a gas lantern.
“Straight ahead,” he said gruffly.
The tunnel was in much the same condition as the grate. The walls looked slimy and filthy. When her arm brushed against them, she felt slick wetness, and from then on was very careful to stay in the middle of the path. The dampness smelled like earth and mildew and forgotten things. Thankfully, the tunnel was short—only as thick as the wall itself—and then Auspex slid past her to work at the latches on another grate.
“No animachines roam near the walls, but when we enter the forest, you must take care.” He rested an arm on the grate and turned to face Wren as if to emphasize the importance of his warning.
Wren felt like telling him he needn’t bother. There was no way in the world she was going to run off on her own in the middle of a bunch of monsters. The only thing she was afraid of was losing her nerve and dashing right back to the tunnel. “I’ll stay with you.”
“We’ll be at the Outsiders’ camp by nightfall.” Auspex leaned hard on the grate, which opened with the screech of reluctant metal, and then they were outside the Wall.
Wren took a few paces and then blinked against the brilliance of the light. It was almost as though someone had flicked a switch, and the gray, rainy atmosphere of the city had disappeared. Instead, her eyes fought to make sense of a landscape full of brilliant colors. She saw the red dirt she had noticed on that first flight into Nod dotted with brilliant yellows and greens. Large violet plants swayed at what must be a forest’s edge, and it was to this Auspex led them.
“Why did the rain stop?” Simon asked, peering back to look at the city, which was still covered with mist.
“The rain is artificial,” Auspex snorted. “Another invention of the Magicians.” He nodded up toward the brilliant blue sky. “A way to keep the flying animachines out.”
“Ah,” Simon muttered, flipping back a few pages to add a notation. “So that’s what the shield over Nod is for.”
Wren hunched her shoulders and hustled after him into the cover of the wood. There were flying animachines?
She was glad Simon was with her, though of course his nose was buried in his notebook. She never understood how it was that he managed to walk and write at the same time. The countryside around them had a strange topography. Nothing was recognizable, though plenty of things were Earthlike. She could see what appeared to be mountains off in the distance, and the tree line ahead of them indicated a forest. The earth itself was a burnt-orange color that rose in crests and was covered with a brilliant red shrubbery that was soft to the touch.
“What is it?” Wren asked Auspex, but he merely shrugged.
“Redbush, we call it. It’s all over the flatlands.”
“And that?” Wren asked, pointing to the lavender foliage growing on the trees.
“Purplevines.”
She stopped asking after that. It seemed the Outsiders were no-nonsense about most things, including what names they chose for their biological discoveries.
The purplevines were breathtaking and gave the entire forest an ethereal feel, as though she were walking between swaths of wispy fabric in some outdoor temple. The trees grew dense here, shutting out the harsh sunlight and bathing the forest in twilight. Low-lying yellow flowers bloomed at the roots of most trees. They were probably called “yellowflowers.”
“How long have the Outsiders lived beyond the walls?” Wren called up to Auspex, who was setting a fast pace.
“Since the end of the plague,” he said. “Malcolm was the first.” Auspex stopped to uncork his canteen, taking a long drink and then offering it to Simon and next Wren. “He had a few apprentices. They found him when he died.”
Wren lowered the canteen from her lips. “How did he die?”
“Upas trees,” Auspex said. “The gas they emit is poisonous when inhaled.”
“Could you describe them for me?” Simon asked, turning over a fresh page in his notebook. “And the qualities of their poison?”
Wren scanned the clearing. For once the Outsiders decided to pick a nondescriptive name?
“They’re not in this part of the forest,” Auspex said, noticing her alarm. “Else we’d already be dead. They have crimson flowers and emit a colorless gas that has a faint cinnamon odor. But by the time you smell that it doesn’t matter anymore.” He took the canteen back from Wren. “Anyway, it was a shame that we lost Malcolm. He was a brilliant Magician.” He slung his pack over his shoulder and beckoned for them to walk next to him, as the path was wider here. Wren followed but did not stop to pluck the yellow flowers as she had thought of doing before. Deadly plants were not something to be trifled with.
“His apprentices were upset,” Auspex continued. “The city dwellers responded callously to Malcolm’s death and became more interested in preserving pure stardust than in discovering how to become caretakers of our new planet. Instead of joining with Boggen’s forward push for progress, Malcolm’s apprentices decided to leave.” He smiled, the first genuine emotion she had seen on his face. “My grandmother was one of them.”
“So there are lots of Outsiders, then?” Despite the fact that Simon seemed to navigate the terrain easily while continuing his note-taking enterprise, Wren had to struggle to keep up. The undergrowth had grown thicker, and she couldn’t help but brush up against the yellow flowers. The purplevines that had once seemed so lovely now impeded their progress, and Auspex had to stop and cut their way through more than once.
“A fair number,” Auspex said. “We don’t take censuses, you see, and life out here is dangerous. We lose many, but it’s a good life, and stardust free.”
Wren fell back then, letting him hack away at the vines unhindered. What would Auspex say if he knew she and Simon were carrying stardust around their necks?
“Here’s a thick one,” Auspex said, pulling out a cutting tool with several folding blades that he stopped to adjust. “The purplevines grow back within twelve hours,” he said with a grunt as he clipped the vine in two. “Impossible to trim. It gets harder to pass this way with every year.”
“I thought the Outsiders didn’t like the city,” Wren said. “Why do they go there?”
“Do you not study ecosystems on Earth?” Auspex looked puzzled. “He, at least, seems a born naturalist.” He gestured toward Simon, who looked up from his notes, blinking.
Auspex continued. “What the city dwellers do affects us all. We Outsiders have been cleaning up Mother Goose’s mistakes these hundred years past, and the animachines still run free. What new wretchedness is afoot in Nod with every passing decade?” He frowned. “Stardust taints everything, and until the city dwellers come to believe that for themselves, no one on this planet will ever have peace. There can be no compromise.”
This seemed to be the recurring refrain of Outsider philosophy. Whenever Auspex said anything about stardust or magic, he repeated the same warning: there can be no compromise. During the rest of their journey, Wren learned that the Outsiders called the planet Vita, the Latin word for “life.” They survived by growing their own crops of what sounded like legumes and then foraged for berries and other edible plants that they had identified. Auspex was just beginning to explain how young Outsiders’ education centered around weapons training when they were suddenly interrupted.
“Get down!” Auspex shouted, shoving Wren behind a particularly dense clump of purplevines. Auspex leaped over to where Simon was walking and tucked him in the hollow of a giant tree trunk. Before Wren had even steadied herself, Auspex had unstrapped some sort of crossbow and crouched down on one knee to take aim. Wren followed his line of sight and nearly lost her footing a second time.
Slinking through the underbrush on silent paws was the largest cat she had ever seen. Its head reminded her of a cougar, with wary almond-shaped eyes fixed on Auspex. Its muscular torso resembled that of a mountain cat, but it was the legs that drew Wren’s attention. They were silver plated, as though the cat was armored in some flexible man-made material. Even in the dim light of the forest’s cover she could see the glint of metal.
The cat stopped for a moment, sniffing the air and settling in on its hindquarters. Then, in one terrifying heartbeat, it leaped, a huge, un-animal-like lunge across the forest toward Auspex. Wren’s scream came out like a squeak as Auspex’s crossbow fired, catching the beast in the center of its chest and felling it.
Auspex turned toward her, yanking her up by the elbow, and then grabbed Simon. “Run!” he shouted. “Where there’s one hovercat there’s more. We must hurry before the whole clowder is upon us.”
Wren stumbled over a root, but then she found herself in a full-on sprint. All she could think about was how similar the cat looked to the awful spiders in her dream. Except this wasn’t a dream. This was real, and this time she wasn’t a silent observer, but the predator’s prey. Simon raced next to her, his notebook flapping forgotten in one hand, his jacket streaming out behind him.
Auspex ran with his crossbow loaded, glancing back over his shoulder with a practiced eye. “There are two behind us. Others probably on our flanks. They all are linked with the prime cat, and they hunt us now. Our only hope of safety lies in reaching the island first.” He pointed to a dense shadow on the horizon. “Make for that formation there, and split up. It will be harder for them to chase two of you.” Auspex sent Simon dashing off to the left and directed Wren straight ahead. “Whatever speed you have in you, girl, use it. Run!”
Wren could hear the clank of metal behind her as the hovercats abandoned stealth and hunted their prey. Her heart was in her throat, her breath coming in gasps. She reached for the pouch around her neck. Would the stardust obey her? Or would it fall flat like it had done before?
Auspex shouted at her again. “Continue on. Don’t stop until you reach the island.” And then he was falling back, dropping to one knee to aim at the nearest hovercat. Wren didn’t wait to watch this time. She made for the hill-like formation Auspex had indicated, and though it seemed only a couple of football fields away, it might have been miles. She saw movement on one side, the metallic glint of unearthly legs, and then the animachine began howling.
Wren braved another look back at Auspex. He had felled a second beast and was sprinting after her, but another hovercat was right behind him. Wren didn’t think he saw it coming. She reached for her pouch. She had to try. She didn’t stop moving, so her jostling steps sent stardust spilling from her palm, but she began the rhyme. She sped her pace. It was working! The stardust was knitting together, forming into a pulsing ball. She tried something she had once seen in an apprentice lesson, splitting the ball in two. She felt the tightness rattle inside, bottled up emotions threatening to explode all over the place, the loudest of all telling her that she was running out of time. She not only heard the hovercat to her right, she could feel the ground trembling with its approach. The stardust flared hot in her palm. But she didn’t need that to know it was working. As on Earth, the weather was changing. The purplevines began to stir, moving in the wind, tangling in front of her. Wren’s only hope was that they hindered the progress of the hovercats as well. She ducked behind the nearest clump, peering out to see that the hovercat hunting her was only a few arm lengths away, swatting at the engulfing underbrush.
“Please don’t fail me now,” Wren whispered to the stardust in her palms. “Not like this. Not when it counts.” She aimed a flaming ball at the trapped hovercat, and it howled as the projectile singed its fur, before turning tail and disappearing into the foliage. Echoing yowls answered back, and Wren felt all the hair on her arms stand straight up. She had chased one off, but there weren’t only one or two more, there was a whole pack. She hoped Simon had found better luck with his route.
She looked back the way she had come, but there was no sign of Auspex. Just the ominous form of a hovercat batting something between its paws the way housecats do when they’ve caught a mouse. And then Wren realized.
“Auspex!” she shouted, racing back toward him. The man was unconscious, his limp form rolling back and forth between huge paws, if the animachine’s robotic appendages could even be called paws. The beast looked up at Wren, its glinting red eyes narrowing as they found their target. Wren didn’t hesitate. She channeled all her emotions into her remaining ball of stardust, sending it straight at the head of the beast. The air around her exploded with sparks. The hovercat screamed in agony, and all the hovercats in the clowder with it. Before her eyes, the half-animal monster crumbled into ash, leaving only a metal shell. Two down, who knows how many to go. Wren immediately began working more stardust, but she felt the tension inside dissipate, the rest of her emotions chased away by the growing terror that she was going to die. The purplevines settled back into their listless hanging, and the dust lay flat and lifeless in her palm. Her heart sank. NO! Her hands were shaky as she frantically pinched and blew on the stardust, willing it into life. It took her a few minutes to realize that it might not matter. If they had still been around, the hovercats would have devoured her by now, and instead here she was, crouched on the forest floor next to a moaning Auspex.
“Child?” he murmured, his eyes fixing on Wren. “You saved me.” He shook his head as though he had been asleep for a long time. “You slew the prime cat and the others with it. How did you—?” and then his eyes rolled back into his head. He was unconscious.
“Auspex!” Wren shouted, shaking his shoulder. He had to wake up!
Just then, she heard the crash of footfalls in the underbrush, and she reached for Auspex’s crossbow. If the stardust wouldn’t work, she would have to resort to other measures. The sounds came louder, and Wren pivoted on one heel, aiming the weapon first at one gap between the trees, then another, until the purplevines started shaking, and something burst through them.
Wren didn’t wait to see what. She pulled the trigger on the crossbow, which blasted her off her feet and onto her bottom, and sent an arrow shooting skyward.
“Dust and Ashes!” a voice shouted. “Take that thing away from her. Auspex, is that you?” And then there were people there. People dressed in lavenders and grays that matched the forest. People with dirty faces that broke into wide smiles when they saw that she had been trying to protect Auspex. One of them came up to Wren. She looked like a grandmother, but she was lean and strong. She pulled Wren to her feet, eyeing her from head to toe with sharp blue eyes. Her voice was raspy, but it carried loud and clear through the woods. “Take them to the island.”