Home > Dustborn(5)

Dustborn(5)
Author: Erin Bowman

“She’s seen one of ours before. Years ago, when we still called Alkali Lake home. My friend Asher was sick with an endless fever. His ma brought him, and Zuly treated him.”

“You must’ve had good payment.”

I don’t know what Silla paid Zuly that day, but I nod anyway. “I have payment again now. Please. My sister is dying.”

It’s only when I speak the words that I realize they’re true. If Indie was fine, Astra would have delivered the baby at home. Ma never would have sent me into the wastes.

“The tanker is a half click that way,” the watchman says, pointing southeast. “You better be quick. The skies paint warnings.”

I glance over my shoulder. The northern sky is alight with ribbons of green and white, dancing and twining above the darkening horizon.

A silent storm is coming.

I curse, remembering the flare yesterday as I helped Indie in the cornfields. We had to take shelter among the stalks for a few minutes, shielding our eyes until the brightness passed. Was that really only a day ago? It feels like a lifetime. Doesn’t matter. Flares always come before the auroras, and the auroras always come before the silent storms. The gods may send them to punish us, but at least they warn us, too.

I touch the lodestone beneath my shirt. I’ll be able to find my way, but I worry about Indie. Some silent storms merely disrupt Old World compasses and stir up more dust. Others are so strong, you can feel your heart racing, your blood boiling. They’ve killed the elderly on rare occasions, caused their hearts to stop cold. And in Indie’s weakened state . . .

Silent storms. Silent killers.

The watchman tugs at something behind him, and a faded red flag unfurls on the rig. “So they know you’re coming,” he explains.

“Thank you.”

“Now go. Before the dust hits.” The flag flaps gently above him, teased by a breeze that hasn’t existed all day.

I turn southeast and run.

 

 

Chapter Three


I thought the oil rig was large, but the tanker makes me feel no bigger than a beetle.

It waits ahead, partially swallowed by the earth and leaning to the side, as if it sank into the ocean’s drying floor off kilter before the mud hardened. Sand has gathered at the tanker’s base, a big rounded hull that extends up toward the deck. Like Zuly’s watchtower rig, a railing surrounds it, but here, mounted torches flicker in the strengthening wind.

“Hello?” I call.

There’s a creak, and something descends from the shadows. A miniature version of the tanker, lowered to the ocean bed by a series of pulleys. The mini-tanker has no deck or railings, and its curved hull is actually hollow. I’m supposed to sit in it, I realize.

I heave Indie from the dragger and into our ride. Completely limp, she seems to weigh a ton, and sweat beads her brow. Her eyes are closed, but moving behind her lids.

“Indie?” I ask her as the ropes creak and we’re lifted into the air.

She murmurs something, but her eyes stay shut.

I hate this damn baby. I’ve hated it since I learned of it, and it must know, because now it’s trying to punish me.

When the pulleys creak to a halt, the mini-tanker is level with the deck of the tanker itself. Hands grab me and pull me over the railing. My feet hit the pitched deck. It’s massive. Floors are a rarity in the wastes, and the sheer size of what stretches before me is confounding. In the flickering torchlight I can make out rows of boxed plant beds and lattices filled with vines, all growing beneath cloth canopies. Basins for collecting water. Looms filled with wool. This high off the ocean bed, the wind is stronger, and several pack-members pull linens over the goods to protect them from the incoming storm.

I move toward Indie, only to find that two women are already hauling my sister onto the deck.

“You have payment?” a voice says.

I turn and find an old woman before me. Her skin is scored with wrinkles, her matted hair a white knot atop her head. Instead of goggles, she wears the remnants of a vulture’s skull like a mask, and it covers her forehead and nose, making her appear birdlike herself. The hem of her long, dark wool robe is adorned with feathers.

This is Zuly of the Ark.

Asher had told me about her when he returned to Alkali Lake after his fever. Flint has described her to me also, but Asher’s description was more accurate. I thought he was being dramatic. We were just six at that time. It made sense that he might have exaggerated things or hallucinated in the heat of his sickness, but Zuly is as he said: a doctor with the eyes of a fox, the face of a vulture, and the body of a witch.

I fumble for my rucksack, pull out the goods Ma packed.

Zuly turns over the jars and inspects the bread. She passes the potatoes to a young woman at her rear. “Plant these. They will grow better fare than these surely taste.” She turns back to me. “What else?”

“Nothing,” I manage. “That was it.”

Zuly’s eyes flick to Indie’s prone form on the deck, then back to me. “To deal with this costs more. You have nothing else of value?”

Beneath my shirt and hidden from view, the lodestone seems to burn on my breastbone. Indie would be worth it, but I can’t give it up. If I do, we’ll never find our way home, and then all of this will be for nothing.

A shout across the deck draws my attention. The pack-members are struggling with one of the linens. Their tether has snapped. It is now too short to properly bind the cover in place.

“Rope,” I say. “I can give you rope.” I grab the tie that holds my hair in a knot and pull it loose. My dark hair tumbles to my waist. The pieces not already matted or braided are caught by the wind and blow across my eyes. I grab one of the long sections of braid. “How many?”

“Three.”

I draw my Old World knife, gather the braids high near my scalp, and saw through them.

“I will do my best despite the meager payment,” Zuly says as I hand the braids over. She nods to her pack-members and they scoop Indie up and lug her away, passing through a door that must lead to the inside of the tanker.

“Wait— I want to come. I need to stay with—”

“You will stay at a distance,” Zuly says. “Your energy is too tight, young . . .”

“Delta,” I tell her. “Of Dead River.”

“You will bring disaster upon this healing. Keep back. Someone will get you when there is news.” Zuly turns, her robe fanning out near her feet, and disappears after her women.

I look helplessly around the deck. Torches are whipping in the wind. Dust stings my cheeks. Glancing back across the ocean bed, I can no longer make out the watchtower rig.

“Come inside,” says a young girl who is roughly Pewter’s age.

I follow her through the door and into the belly of the tanker, where it smells of metal and rust and falseness. The air is stale. I can’t hear the wind.

It’s worse than our cellar during storms.

We climb down a series of ladders and snake through halls where I have to duck at each doorway to keep from hitting my head. The girl takes me to a small room where beds jut from the wall. They remind me of our mats back home, but, they’re suspended by metal brackets.

“We don’t have water to spare,” the girl says to me.

“I didn’t think you would.”

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