Raven Rise (21 page)

I was about a couple hundred yards out from the pier when I heard an odd sound. I had been listening to the steady drone of the skimmer's engines for the last million hours. This was different. It was steady, but definitely a different frequency. I cut the engines. Water lapped up onto the deck as I came to a stop. Once the sloshing sounds stopped, I listened intently. The sound was faint, but distinct. It wasn't like anything I remembered hearing in Rubic City. The steady sound grew louder. Was it coming closer? The skimmer bobbed gently on the small swells. I scanned the city. There was nothing in sight that could be making that kind of sound, but it was definitely there and getting louder. It sounded like the buzz of a machine. That was impossible. There was nothing mechanized in Rubic City. At least nothing that had worked for centuries.

I was about to hit the throttle and travel the rest of the way to the pier when my eye caught movement. Dead ahead. It looked like a dark cloud moving along a street, between the rows of tall buildings. I strained to get a better look. The cloud grew bigger. It was definitely moving. Was it a dust storm? A minitornado? Whatever it was, it had cleared the last row of buildings and was headed my way. For a second I thought that maybe there really
were
ghosts in Rubic City, because a big, black-looking specter was coming toward me.

That's when I saw the lights. It was almost pretty. Almost. As the cloud grew closer, it seemed decorated with thousands of tiny, twinkling lights. Yellow lights. Like Christmas. The sound grew even louder. The buzzing sound. The lights were the tip-off. It wasn't a cloud. It wasn't a tornado. It wasn't a ghost. It wasn't Christmas.

It was a swarm of bees. Quig-bees. The weird thing was, I wasn't afraid. Not just then anyway. My first thought wasn't that I had to do something or I was going to get swarmed and stung by those monsters. No, my first thought was that there were quigs in Rubic City guarding the flume. That meant that this territory was once again hot. Saint Dane had sent his little demons out to welcome me. There was no chance of surprise here. He knew I was coming.

That's when I got scared.

(CONTINUED)

I
was alone in the middle of the harbor on a tiny boat with a swarm of quig-bees closing fast. I looked around for some kind of protection. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. I feared I was done before I even set foot back on dry land.

Dry land. I wasn't on dry land. I did have protection. The water. Could quig-bees swim? I hoped not. I figured I could dive underwater and hide under the skimmer. How long could I last doing that? Were those bees smart enough to hover around, waiting for me to run out of air? If they were smart enough to leave the city to find me, they might be smart enough to bide their time until I poked my head above the surface.

The swarm was out over the water, halfway to me. They weren't fast. I wasn't sure if that was good or just meant it prolonged the torture of my knowing I was about to get stung a million times. My only choice was to go into the water. I was about to jump overboard when I realized if the skimmer stayed dead in the water, I'd be dead in the water too. I had to keep moving toward shore. The throttle for the pontoon engines was on the right handle. It worked like bike brakes. I quickly tore off a length of rotted material from Loque's pants and looped it around the handle and the throttle. I tied it tight, pulling the throttle so it engaged the engine. I didn't want it to go too fast or I wouldn't be able to control it. All I wanted was for the skimmer to move forward. The powerful engine hummed. The skimmer headed toward shore, closer to the swarm of quigs. I tied off the loop and jumped to the back. There were two handles on the stern at water level that the aquaneers of Cloral used to tie up and tow other boats. I was going to use them to try to steer the skimmer from behind. I had no idea if it would work, but it was the only thing I could think of. The dark, sparkling cloud of quigs was almost on me. I put my legs over the stern, grabbed one of the handles, and twisted around while lowering myself into the water. I floated out flat, letting my legs trail behind. I twisted them to the right and felt the skimmer move left. I moved them left and felt the skimmer move right. My legs acted as a rudder. It was working.

Only trouble was, I had no idea where I was going. I was down behind the stern with no view ahead. Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly the only trouble. A few seconds later it grew dark. It felt as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. It had. Sort of. The swarm of quigs had arrived. I held my breath and ducked my head underwater. The handles were above water level, which meant my hands would be too. Would the quigs realize that?

Yes. I felt a sharp sting on my right hand. Without thinking I let go and pulled it underwater. That meant I was hanging on by only one hand. In seconds the quigs would go after that one and I'd have to let go. The skimmer would power off and I'd be dead. I forced myself to grab the handle with my right hand again and pulled my left hand underwater. It was better to have one hand exposed at a time. It gave the quigs less to go after. Though I was underwater I could still hear their demonic buzzing over the sound of the skimmer engines. I can't say how many times I was stung. I switched hands a few times, which seemed to be working. The bees weren't as smart as I gave them credit for. Lucky me. It was a good plan, except for the fact that I didn't know which way I was going.

And I was running out of air. Oh. That. My lungs started screaming. I waited until the absolute last possible second, then pushed my head up, gulped air, and ducked back under again. I didn't get stung. Not once. I didn't know how long I could keep it up. My arms were starting to feel like they were being pulled out of their sockets, and my hands were cramping. Suddenly the few stings I'd gotten didn't bother me so much. I wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer.

I had no idea which direction I was going. For all I knew I had leg-ruddered the skimmer around and was headed back out to sea. Or traveling in circles. The next time I came up for air, I took a quick look behind me, hoping not to see Rubic City growing smaller in the distance. I saw nothing but ocean. Phew. I went back under and tried to duck below the skimmer to look ahead. It was too dark to make out anything, and my vision was blurred. I didn't think I was in the middle of the harbor anymore, but that's about all I could tell. I figured that I had been traveling long enough that I might soon hit land. But where? More important, what would I do when I got there?

The quigs were still after me. I knew that because I kept getting stung. Just when I thought I couldn't hang on any longer, it suddenly got dark. I mean really dark. Night dark. I knew that couldn't be the case. Not that fast. Night didn't really “fall.” I took another gulp of air, tried to take a quick look around, and saw nothing but nothing. The world had gone black. Well, not entirely. The quigs were still buzzing above me. Their glowing yellow eyes made them look like fireflies in the dark. What had happened? I ducked back underwater and pushed my head down to look under the skimmer. It was good I did, because a second later the small boat hit something and stopped short. We hit land. Or something else solid. Good thing I was below the surface or my head would have slammed into the stern. The skimmer stopped abruptly, but I kept going. My hand was ripped off the handle. I was now under the skimmer, someplace dark, and running out of air. The skimmer's engines whined. It was bobbing against a hard surface, and with nowhere to go, it started to turn. It wanted to keep going and was looking for a way out. The engines screamed louder. I turned in time to see that one of the pontoons was headed right for me. If that thing slammed my head, it would hurt. I shifted quickly as the pontoon slid by, grazing my nose. I got hit with the stream of water that ejected from the rear. If the skimmer had been at full power, it might have ripped my head off. As it was, it only gave me a mild shove. A moment later the skimmer took off. It must have turned away from whatever had stopped it and found an escape route.

Good for the skimmer. Bad for me. I was stranded underwater. I looked up to see the blurry images of the flickering yellow quig lights hovering above me. I couldn't surface. They'd be on me. I chose a direction and started to swim. Desperately. I didn't know why or where I was going, but I didn't want to be where I was. I half expected to hit the same wall the skimmer had, but I saw what looked like a long beam in front of me that was just below the water. I swam under it. Now I had to get air. I pulled for the surface and hit my hands on something. I was below a dock. If I hadn't been in a panic before, I sure was then, because I was trapped. If the water level went all the way up to this hard surface, I'd drown. I didn't have the energy to swim back out. Not that I even knew which way was out. With my hand touching the hard ceiling, I cautiously surfaced and hit the top of my head. No! There was no breathing room! I kept my wits though. I only needed a few inches of air. The distance from the top of my head to my mouth was what? Six inches? I didn't need that much. I kicked my legs so I was floating on my back. I pushed my face up, lips first, and broke the surface. Yes! I think I gulped more water than air and had to gag and cough. I didn't care. I had air. I pressed my lips against the rough surface to stay as far out of the water as possible. I'm guessing there was about a three-inch gap between the surface of the water and the underside of whatever was above me. It was enough. Once I calmed myself, I actually found it easier to breathe through my nose, because when I opened my mouth, water sloshed inside. It was a nightmare situation, but I was alive.

The surface was rough, like wood. Faint lines of light glowed between the planks. I positioned my eye below one seam to try to see what was above. When I focused, I immediately gasped and dropped below the surface, inhaling a bunch of water. I instantly pushed back up and coughed it out. I had to keep my head together or I'd drown for sure. What I had seen was a bunch of quig-bees trying to push themselves through the cracks between the boards to get to me. They sounded angry, too. If they got through, they'd be on me. The quigs were no more than two inches from my eyes, desperately trying to get at me. All I could do was hope that the space between the boards was too narrow for them to squeeze through.

A few agonizing seconds later, none of them had made it. They were too big. I was safe. Uncomfortable as hell, but safe. The only way they would get me was if they waited me out. No way I'd let that happen. As torturous as it was, I was prepared to float like that for days to avoid those bees.

I'm glad to say it didn't take days. I had been under there for a few minutes at best when the quig swarm suddenly took off. I could see the flashes of light through the thin cracks as they streaked through the darkness, headed someplace else. I waited. The buzzing sound was soon gone. I didn't hear the whine of the skimmer engine either. The only sound was the sloshing of the water against the underside of the structure above my head. I waited a few more minutes, to make sure they were really gone, then made a move to get out. I took a deep breath and pushed underwater. Looking around, I saw that one direction looked brighter than the other. I swam that way. It only took a few strokes before the ceiling I was under, ended. I was back out in open water. Or at least I was back out to where the skimmer had abandoned me. I kicked and broke the surface to take the first comfortable breath of air I'd had since I entered the water.

A quick look around told me several things. Most important, the quig-bees were gone. Hopefully for good. Second, the skimmer was gone too. I guessed it had spun around and made its way back out to sea. I hoped the quigs were chasing it. The third thing I realized was that I was in a familiar place. I had maneuvered the skimmer beneath the tall pier where the thousands of skimmers from Cloral had been kept. This is where Siry and I stole the skimmer to escape from Rubic City. Most of the skimmers were gone. I saw a few vehicles bobbing against the docks, but that was it. It was like being inside a big, wet, empty airplane hangar.

I had been hiding beneath one of the narrow docks that ringed the place. I took a few strokes back to the dock and hoisted myself up on top. Man, it felt good to have something solid under my butt. It felt even better to breathe. I made two fists. My hands had been stung pretty bad and were swollen. I didn't care. It was a small price to pay. I wished I could have sat around and enjoyed the simple pleasure of filling my lungs with something other than water, but I had business to do. My relief over having survived the quig attack didn't last long. It was time to find the mine that the Flighters had been digging.

It was time to find Saint Dane.

My single goal was to figure out a way to destroy that mine and bury the flume forever. How? I had no idea. If I wanted to save Ibara and return to my life on the island, I would have to find a way. I hoped I wasn't too late. Could the flume already have been found? How long had the Flighters been digging? How deep was the flume buried beneath the rubble of Rubic City? It seemed like an impossible task to unearth something so huge, without tools or digging equipment…other than the bleeding hands and tired backs of the poor Flighters. Logic told me that digging out the flume was impossible. Yet Loque said he had been inside the mine. They had made progress. I had to hope that the attack of the quig-bees didn't mean that the flume was already open.

The one weapon I'd brought with me, the bow and arrows, was gone. I had it beneath the deck of the skimmer, which was now headed off to parts unknown. I needed something to protect myself, so I scanned around for a length of pipe or wood. I saw what I needed a few feet from where I came out of the water. It was a wooden rod with a hook on the end that was probably used to control the skimmers from the docks. I picked it up, felt that it was solid, and spun it once. Bad move. I was out of practice. My swollen sore hands didn't help either. I lost control of the rod and beaned myself in the head. Dope. Not only did I nearly knock myself out, I proved to myself that I was rusty. I hadn't fought in months, and it wasn't as if I were an expert in fighting—like Loor—in the first place. I had to have faith that if I needed them, my skills would return. Was fighting like riding a bike? I was afraid I would have to find that out at some point. I hoped I wouldn't knock myself out before then.

I climbed a metal ladder up and out of the pier and got my first close view of the decaying metropolis of Rubic City. Nothing had changed since I was last there. There were a few hundred yards of bare ground that were covered with mounds of debris—I was guessing this was at one time a park. Beyond that, the tall buildings began. The afternoon was so clear I could make out the giant outline of the Lifelight pyramid that was nestled deep within the canyons of skyscrapers. That was where I had to begin my search for the tunnel that would lead to the mine.

I didn't want to run into any Flighters along the way. Or more quig-bees, for that matter. I figured the best thing I could do was keep moving, so I sprinted off the huge dock and headed for the city. Being in the open like that made me feel pretty vulnerable. There could have been eyes on me that were peering out from any number of the thousands of windows that overlooked the harbor area. I darted from mound to mound, trying to shield myself from curious eyes. It was probably a waste of energy.

I hit the first street and decided to hug the buildings. There was always the danger of a Flighter lying in wait and jumping out at me through a nearby window before I had time to react, but it was better than running down the street for all to see. The afternoon shadows were long. I felt fairly safe creeping through the darkened corners. I'd been through this city before, but it still gave me the creeps. The idea that a bustling, modern metropolis could crumble like this was pretty sobering. Nothing had been taken care of in more than three hundred years. I wondered if someday it would all be buried, waiting for archaeological expeditions of future generations to uncover the stores and streets of this dead civilization.