The Girl and the Stars
“Ah yes, young Erris. A good-hearted boy, to be sure. I apologise for hijacking your escape, but there’ll still be time enough for all that running and screaming. It’s just that we don’t get many visitors down here and . . .”
A screech reached in through the shuttered windows, at once huge and yet far away. A scream like nothing Yaz had heard before or even imagined. Nothing human. A roar so laden with threats of violence and pain that Yaz immediately wanted nothing more than to cower beneath the table and hope for it to end. Instead she fought to keep the quiver from her voice as she asked, “What was that?”
“That?” Elias flashed her a dark look. “That’s what the end of the world sounds like.”
“It’s after me?” Panic clawed at Yaz’s heart. She shoved it down, ashamed at her weakness. The scream seemed to echo in her skull.
“It’s after us all, dear. By definition.” Elias allowed himself a small smile. “But yes, today it’s after you. But only because I showed an interest.” He went to the window. “Care to take a look?”
“Is this a test?” Yaz stood, warily. Her head brushing the ceiling.
“Everything is a test.” Elias set a thin, long-fingered hand to the shutter. “Quickly though. Look at him too long and he’ll look at you.”
Yaz crouched to peer out as Elias eased the shutter back, opening it a crack.
The cold cut at her with the fierceness of the polar night. The forest lay thick with snow beneath a blazing white sky, all the trees had burst asunder, an army of bare, broken trunks, their branches fallen. And above it all with the frozen light bleeding all around it, some great dark . . . thing, a creature as large as the sky, like a hand but not, a creature of spindly legs reaching out to encompass the world, supporting a knotted body the colour of venom and despair. The thing hypnotised the eye, drawing on the mind behind. Yaz felt her thoughts leaking from her.
“That’s Seus.” Elias pulled her back.
“What is it?”
“In this place it’s what you see it as. A monster that wishes to destroy you. Out in the world it’s a city. The heart and mind of a great city.”
“That thing is the city?” Yaz was horrified to think it already held her in its clutches.
“What? No! This city is Vesta. A cracked and broken thing. Seus is far to the south, its mind much more intact, though sadly still afflicted with a kind of madness. Seus has poisoned a great many cities and closed the paths between them. Once upon a time I could travel from city to city in the space between two heartbeats. What I need—”
The light of the fire dimmed and Yaz’s breath plumed in the air between them.
“He’s found us.” Elias’s voice took on a note of urgency. “Listen to me, this is important.” A white tracery of frost began to form across the walls, tendrils of ice reaching out across the planks. “Whatever bad thing is chasing you out there, Seus is worse. Whatever plot you find, dig deep enough, scratch away enough layers, and you’ll find Seus at the bottom.” The hut began to groan as if a great weight were being loaded upon it. Yaz found herself shivering, truly cold for the first time since leaving the north. “He’s closed all the ways. I can’t reach him. You need to take me to him, Yaz.”
“He’s right outside . . .” As if to underscore her point some large timber surrendered to mounting pressure and the hut shook, ice scattering across them as it broke from the low ceiling. The fire was nothing now, hardly an ember clinging to its glow.
“You need to take me to where he lives. To the city. And not this me. There’s too little of me here.” He handed her something. A small silvery needle not more than an inch long.
“I don’t understand.”
Elias went to the door. He glanced back at her with a narrow smile. “I’m a man of many parts, Yaz. I’ve been many things. Juggled many rings at once.”
“Juggled?” Yaz was finding it hard to talk, her face a frozen mask, the air so cold she could feel it fraying her lungs with each breath.
“My first-ever job was to find out how the world worked—” Seeing her blank and pained expression he waved the matter aside. “Never mind.” He set his hand to the icy door. “If you live long enough to understand the battle you’re in—the big one, not the little one—then use the needle and find me.”
“Where are you going?” Yaz asked it through chattering teeth.
“Outside. Seus needs something to kill while you escape.”
“You can’t just—”
“Watch me.” And in the next moment he was through the door, outlined for a moment in the cold blaze of a day like no other. The door shut. An awful scream rang out and then everything was darkness and silence.
* * *
“ARE YOU THERE?” Yaz could see nothing, feel nothing save that there was ground beneath her feet and that the incredible cold had left, leaving only the memory of a shiver.
“I am.” As Erris spoke beside her a faint glow started somewhere within the complexity of his chest where things Yaz could only think of as metal bones and metal teeth pumped and threshed.
“I was somewhere strange! There was a man called Elias and—”
“You arrived at the same time I did,” Erris said. “And we still need to hurry.”
“Where are we?” The increasing glow outlined a small cubic chamber, wholly empty. Another place to die? The new reality overwrote images of frozen forests and sky monsters. Yaz turned to inspect the stonework behind her. “I can walk through walls!” It came out half laugh, half gasp.
“You can walk along paths the Missing provide for you, even if they happen to lead through walls, yes. I wouldn’t try it on other walls, or too far from a sizable star-stone.”
“So, where are we?” Yaz returned her gaze to the room.
“A junction. We need to leave . . . this way.” Erris crossed the room in three strides and set a hand to the wall. “And quickly, before the city realises what we’re doing and starts to make things difficult.”
“Vesta?” Yaz asked.
Erris frowned. “Yes. How did you know that name?”
“I told you there was this man and—”
“You were intercepted. It’s a danger when you travel this way without proper understanding, and there are powers that watch for strays. Come on. We need to go.” He beckoned her to him.
Yaz joined Erris then pressed her forehead to the stone below the point where his fingers touched the wall. She noticed a gleam in her hand and found she held a silver needle, clutched tight between finger and thumb. Without comment she stuck it through the hides over her collarbone.