Part 17 (1/2)

Static electricity crackled from her fingertips as she took Tom's arm. He had let her Take from him before, so she felt comfortable doing it again.

*Sayed, was that you?'

Sal's reply was faint and fragmented. *- didn't want to give you a fright.' He sounded a thousand kilometres away. *Sorry - rough -'

Although she was concerned for him, she didn't want to distract him from his immediate situation, whatever it was. *Save your strength,' she said. *I just wanted to make sure?

His thoughts slipped from her mind, but the niggling sense of him remained. While that tickled at the underside of her mind, she would know that he was alive, somewhere.

Marmion turned to face the rest of the search party. He looked unsettled rather than angry. The latest twist in events had temporarily overwhelmed his predisposition to outrage.

*That's our cue to get moving,' he said. *We need to uncover the buses and get them over here. Our immediate priorities are the injured people in our care. We'll either have to treat them here or find a way across to Laure - and it looks like we're going that way anyway, if we're to retain any chance of heading off the Homunculus. Whoever those people were -' he indicated the ruts left by the newcomers' wheels with a jerk of his head, *- I think we'd be best served by avoiding them in future.'

*You'll get no argument from me,' said s.h.i.+lly.

*I presume that was Sal,' he said to her, lips twisted as though he had tasted something particularly noxious. *That little display.'

She explained what little she had learned about Sal and Skender.

*Well, next time you hear from him, tell him to tone it down. We're not a carnival.'

s.h.i.+lly choked back a comment that she didn't care what Sal did or what it looked like to others; he could st.i.tch the Divide back together from end to end, just as long as he was safe.

Tom accepted her thanks for using his talent. She could tell he felt the drain of it, and resolved to let him recover before trying again. Pale around the cheeks, he hurried off to collapse the hide and fetch the buggy, while she checked on Highson and Skender's friend, fighting exhaustion of her own.

Sal's father lay limply on his side, protected by a makes.h.i.+ft sunshade. His skin was peeling from long exposure to the sun and his eyes had retreated into their sockets. Consciousness seemed to have fled for good after his brief awakening, but his pulse and respiration were steady.

Skender's friend had the more obvious injury, but she was already beginning to stir. s.h.i.+lly joined the warden caring for her, ready to offer help if needed. Her leather attire had been torn and sc.r.a.ped through to the skin in several places, but it had undoubtedly saved her from more serious injuries. Her face and throat were splattered with dried blood. It was hard to see what she would look like without the cloth wadded against her right temple, but s.h.i.+lly made out thick black hair, almond eyes and a proud nose. Full lips and warm, light brown skin suggested that her ancestry belonged to neither the Interior nor the Strand. s.h.i.+lly remembered from years ago a taxi driver telling her about a yellow-skinned people who lived in the tops of giant trees.

Missing mothers, s.h.i.+lly thought, flying wings, and strange girls from the East ... what have you got yourself mixed up in this time, Skender Van Haasteren?

The young woman moaned and tried to brush away the hands at her head. Her eyelids fluttered. *What...? How...?'

*Take a deep breath,' said s.h.i.+lly, leaning close. *You're in safe hands. Your name is Chu, right?'

Her eyes flickered open, revealing irises so brown they were almost as black as her pupils. *Yes,' she said, wincing. *Who are you? Where am I?'

*My name is s.h.i.+lly.'

*What happened to ...?' She sat up, eyes widening in alarm as she looked around. *My wing! Skender!'

*They're both okay,' s.h.i.+lly soothed her, hoping she was telling the truth. *Skender's gone after his mother. We're meeting him later.'

*But I had everything ...' Chu looked at s.h.i.+lly, crestfallen, then at her torn clothes. *It was all going ...' Without warning, she burst into tears.

s.h.i.+lly did the only thing she could think of: she took the girl into her arms. Chu didn't resist, and s.h.i.+lly brushed away the warden - a young man whose name she had forgotten - when he tried to hang on to the dressing still pressed to Chu's head. She held it in place as Chu wept into her shoulder.

Around them, the wardens a.s.sembled an impromptu camp, positioning the two buses and one buggy in a triangle around the two patients. The sun had crept higher into the sky and burned down with growing force. Two of the wardens took the raw material of the hides and rea.s.sembled it into a temporary sunshade. s.h.i.+lly was heartily glad of it when its shadow fell over them. The dry, ovenlike heat was getting to her.

Finally Chu eased off. She sat back and wiped her nose, unable to meet s.h.i.+lly's eyes as she a.s.sumed responsibility for the wadding at her head.

*Does it hurt?' s.h.i.+lly asked her.

*Like anything,' she said. *I'm sorry. I've no idea who you are, but you must think I'm a total freak.'

*I've seen much worse.' s.h.i.+lly shrugged. *And besides, any friend of Skender's is a friend of mine, freak or otherwise.'

*You know him?'

*Used to, years ago.'

A flash of something very much like jealousy pa.s.sed across the young woman's face. *How?'

*He helped Sal and me in the Haunted City,' s.h.i.+lly rea.s.sured her. *Sal's with him now, making sure he's okay.'

*The Haunted City?' Chu winced and held the wadding tighter to her scalp. Her jealousy intensified, if anything, and s.h.i.+lly realised that she had misinterpreted where the emotion was directed, and at who. *He really does get around, doesn't he?'

*Those were exceptional circ.u.mstances.' s.h.i.+lly wondered how much Skender had told Chu about the old days. *I really don't know what he's been up to since then. Life has been - well, complicated.'

Chu was beginning to take in more of her environment, looking around in confusion. *Seems like it still is. Are these Sky Wardens?'

*Yes.'

*Are you a Sky Warden?'

*No way. You're from Laure?'

Chu nodded, and winced. A look of dismay crossed her fine features. s.h.i.+lly thought she might cry again. *I don't know how I'm going to get back if Skender has my wing.'

That problem had occurred to s.h.i.+lly also. It was all very well for Sal and Marmion to talk about going to the distant city, but getting there wasn't going to be easy.

At least Chu didn't seem angry about Skender's actions. Concerned, yes; hurt, even; but s.h.i.+lly was spared having to justify the actions of someone she hadn't seen for five years.

*We'll take you home,' she said, *if you show us a way across the Divide.'

Chu looked cautiously hopeful. *There's a road. It's pretty old, though, and supposed to be unsafe.'

*Our rides have come a long way. They're pretty tough.'

*That wasn't what I meant.'

*Oh.' s.h.i.+lly didn't know what lived on the bottom of the Divide, and she was in no particular hurry to find out.

*We saw other vehicles out here,' she said. *Three of them. They've gone now. Do you know anything about them?'

Chu shook her head. *Skender and I saw them from the air. He thought they were coming from the Aad, but I don't see how that could be possible.'

*The where?'