Stolen (8 page)

Chapter 11

H
ER PARALYSIS MADE EVERYT
HING
harder—and Faix more exasperated.

So Nat stood at the edge of the cliff, trying to shape the ether, to sculpt something from nothing, to use her power to control the void. She closed her eyes and tried to find the voice of her drakon. Its voice in her head had guided her all her life, and she needed to hear it now.
Where are you?
In her mind's eye she saw the forests of the Blue, she explored the clouds and trees, the mountains and the gorges, and from there she traveled to the ruined Pacific, to Garbage Country, New Vegas, Ashes, and everywhere in between. She searched and she listened, hearing the buzz of a honeybee, the rush of river below, but she could not hear her drakon. Its voice had gone silent, resting somewhere underneath the earth, somewhere she would not be able to feel its pain.

Imagine a bridge,
Faix had told her.
Build a wooden plank. The nothingness is as real as the stone you stand on. In Vallonis we see what cannot be seen.

I need you,
she called to her drakon.
Can you hear me?

Hear me, hear me,
came an echo. Nat startled. That wasn't her voice but someone else's she heard.

Nat opened her eyes with a start. She had heard the voice earlier when she had crossed the gate of Afal.

“Do not be distracted,” Faix scolded. “There is no voice. I hear nothing.”
Stop stalling,
he sent.

Nat frowned. “I can't do this. I don't see anything.”

Faix sighed. “I had hoped that since you were able to ride your drakon you would know a little more than you do.”

“How about you try to ride my drakon and then we'll talk?”

Enough,
he sent. The look he gave her was particularly piercing. Then he tried again. “The children of Vallonis begin when we are young. From the time we are three or four years of age, when we first sense our power, our lessons begin. We learn through games and play, we discover our power as naturally as a young child who learns to imitate the voices of her parents.”

“Is there a point here?”

“When we are older, we learn focus and concentration. Control doesn't come from emotion, my father once told me. We have noticed that the uninitiated—people your world call marked—have discovered that strong emotions can access their powers, but it is not the correct way to do so. Emotions are a crude and unpredictable way to access one's power. Emotion can be overwhelming, and ultimately destructive,” said Faix.

Nat nodded. She knew from experience that Faix was right. She recalled the slave ships, how she had torn the mast and toppled the slave crates. She had lost control; she'd nearly sunk the boat and killed all of them. But here was the thing—she had enjoyed it. There was a thrill to giving into the rage and fury inside her.

“Once you lose your sense of self, you allow the corruption to take over. It happens to everyone.”

She looked sharply at Faix, who sounded as if he was speaking from experience.

Yes, I am,
he sent. But he did not elaborate. She only sensed a brief flash of grief, and then it was gone.

You cannot let the darkness overcome the light.

Faix continued, “In art, there is always emotion, but we cannot sculpt from emotion alone. If we did, our work would be chaotic; it would lack focus.”

“I'm not an artist,” she said. And for good reason. Chaos was all she knew. When she was a prisoner at MacArthur Med, the doctors and her superior officers had told her to use her emotions, to let her hatred build. They'd turned her into a weapon—their weapon. She hunted her own people, used her power to bring in those who were just like her, marked by magic, marked for death. Her mentors had bred that fear, that pain, and like a bomb they'd primed her to explode.

But now Faix was telling her that she needed to forget what she had learned. “They lied to you. They tortured you. They wanted your power, but they did not know how to teach you to control it. They only knew how to make a fire, but not how to keep it burning steadily. It will take time to move past what you have learned.”

Nat tried again. Nothing. “I can't . . . I can't do it without . . . ,” she said.

Faix raised his voice and bellowed into the air, something she never thought she'd hear, especially not spoken aloud. “You think you are the only one to have lost a drakon?”

She stared at him. He came from a line of drakon herders, the mighty clans of drakonborn. She should have remembered.

“Yes, I was born a rydder. I have felt the same pain you have, the grief that comes from separation,” he told her, his voice now once again as calm as ever.

“Where is your drakon?” she asked, her voice trembling, afraid of the answer.

“Gone from this world,” he said, touching his necklace again. “During the first breaking, when Vallonis fell the first time.”

Gone? But then . . . how is it that you live?
Her drakon had gone into the ground; the creature was wounded, but alive. Its temporary absence pained her, but they would be rejoined one day, whereas Faix had lost that bond forever. The possibility of losing her drakon seemed suddenly very real. She had thought she was invincible as she soared through the sky, as she battled the drone army astride her great drakon. Now, she felt foolish. Perhaps she had been in far greater danger than she suspected.

I live because I have to. You will hurt, you will bleed, you will be betrayed as I have been betrayed. You will survive. And you must learn to control your power.

“Teach me,” she said. Now that she knew Faix understood her pain, had experienced it himself, she felt closer to him.

She believed him.

He nodded. “We will start with my father's exercise. A practice I learned as a child. Pick an object.”

“Any object?” she asked.
What does he want me to say?

Say anything. This is not a test.

“A violin?” she said. It sounded like something a sylph would picture.

“Good enough. Picture the instrument. The strings, the neck, the scroll at one end, the chin rest at the other.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Now take a piece of the object, the scroll at the tip of the neck. Picture the spiral, the grain of the wood, the fibers within that wood.”

She was trying, but she couldn't see the point of his father's exercise.

“Go deeper. Within those wooden fibers, try to see the cells that make up the strands, and the molecules that compose the next layer. Imagine each step, smaller and smaller until there is nothing, just the void left within all things, the atoms whizzing through space. Imagine the thing until you've exhausted its essence, until you've reduced it to nothing, to the void, the ether. Only then can you
shape
it into anything you want—you can turn a violin into a cello, or a bridge.”

“I'm trying,” Nat said.

“It's not about trying. It's about repetition. Don't expect results. Expect to fail and fail and fail. Once you are accustomed to failing, once you've made a habit of it, then you can
shape.
”

Nat pictured the violin, the wood, the fibers, the molecules, electrons swirling in the void. Nothing happened. She understood the idea: All things are made from the void, so reduce each object to the void and she could shape that void. “I don't know, I can't do it, I can't make something out of nothing.”

“It is not nothing; that is what you don't understand,” said Faix sadly.

As if a light had turned on inside her head, Nat gasped. She understood. The void was not a void at all,
not nothing
—and all at once, there, right in front of her, was a wooden bridge that stretched from the cliff to the city entry.

She'd done it!

She'd willed it into being.

Nat took a step on the wooden plank, and as Faix had promised, it was as real as the stone behind her. She took another step, her confidence growing—she could do this, she could harness the ether, control her power—she took a third step—

And fell, screaming, into the void.

Chapter 12

E
L
D
ORADO WAS BURNING AND THE
whole city was in chaos. From the marginal safety of the car, Wes stared at what should have been a beautiful metropolis. He'd never seen a city that was intact like this, with sidewalks and trees, manicured storefronts, even if today it was on fire. If not for the billowing black smoke, the whole place would look like a photo snapped in the time
before
—the days before the ice and the snow came, before the world froze. Shiny condominiums stretched ten, twelve stories above the street, sprouting upward between cinemas and restaurants, sidewalk cafés and fancy clothing stores. There were even flower shops and supermarkets—two things Wes hadn't seen in years, at least not with actual flowers or food to sell. It was a snapshot stolen from paradise.

Or it had been, before the fire and the shattered glass. And the people—so many people—running around in a panic, but Wes hardly noticed their stricken expressions; he was staring at them because they were running around bare-legged, dressed in what the typical New Vegas resident wore as underclothes. It was so hot here in the dome, he was sweating already.

Farouk pulled out of the alleyway and zigzagged down the main thoroughfare. “Which way?” he yelled.

“Take your time. Apparently we're just here to see the sights,” Shakes said, elbowing Wes as hard as he could.

“Ow.” Wes snapped out of his reverie. He scrolled through his phone and found what he had paid for with the last of his watts: a map to the facility where Eliza was being held.

“Left,” he said, and the limo squealed left. “Now straight,” he said, looking out the window to the street, trying to orient himself. “Up ahead, turn at the next light.”

“Left?” Farouk asked.

“Right!”

“Which one?” yelled Farouk, confused.

“Left!”

The limo turned just as a shower of glass hit the street, tinkling like bells, like broken music. The scene was even more confusing, more people running out of their houses, out of office buildings, away from the smoke and the flames.

But not everyone was running.

“Look!” Farouk pointed. Scattered throughout the crowds were kids in hospital gowns, in white robes or orange jumpsuits. They walked slowly, deliberately, and their faces were set, concentrating, focused. They were
marked,
all of them.

A boy in a half-zippered jumpsuit pushed past the car. His eyes were flashing yellow. He stared into the window of the limo.

“What are you looking at?” Farouk growled, pressing the gas pedal.

Wes watched out the rear window as the boy turned to the car immediately behind them.

The boy picked it up in his arms and hurled it into the air, as effortlessly as if he were tossing a toy.

“Maybe I'd drive a little faster,” Shakes said, his eyes fixed on a girl across the street who was blowing fire down the street with the wave of two bare hands.

Wes watched as a child with glowing purple eyes in a torn robe raised two hands upward to the dome, forcing the panels to shatter, one by one. She seemed indifferent to the rain of glass all around her.

Even in the chaos, one thing seemed increasingly clear. The marked prisoners had escaped, and now they were having their revenge.

But where's Eliza? Has she escaped, too?
Was she one of these silent, angry children? He would never find her in this crowd. He had to check the hospital first.

“Turn right, turn right,” Wes ordered, and Farouk swerved hard to avoid the burning cars in the intersection, and the limousine skidded on its side; if they had been going any faster, it would have flipped over.

“There!” Wes said. A few blocks ahead stood a white building with rows of black windows. It was nearly as tall as the dome's golden ceiling, with a sign in front that proclaimed it the Eisenhower Medical Facility. Typical. The RSA liked to hide in plain sight, to call their prisons “hospitals,” their military bases “peace centers.” The hospital's street-level windows were cracked and smoke poured out of its open glass doors.

Steel barricades blocked the street entrance to the hospital, so Wes told Farouk to pull into the alley and park. The limousine crashed into a pile of trash cans before stopping. Wes grabbed the pack that held his equipment. He might need it if they lost the limo. He kicked aside the cans and was out on the street, the boys right behind him. Wes didn't even bother to look over his shoulder when he heard two sets of footsteps. “You can stay in the car, 'Rouk. You didn't sign up for this.”

“Screw you, icehole,” Farouk panted. Shakes shoved him as he ran beside him.

They ran toward the hospital, the smoke darker and thicker as they neared it. Looking up, Wes saw enormous fans built into the dome's structure, the massive blades drawing waves of smoke toward the vents. It was a clever system, but it wasn't enough to clear the air entirely, and soon, everyone in this section of the city would perish from smoke inhalation.

A public announcement system blared:
ALL
RESIDENTS TO THE
EASTERN
EXIT.
ALL
OTHER EXITS CLOSED DUE TO SMOKE CONTAINMENT.

Shakes coughed into his hand. “We've got to get out of here before they shut the doors.”

Wes nodded, as the panic around him grew and the screaming grew louder.

EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
TEN
MINUTES.

El Dorado was going to cut off this dome to save the others lest the smoke and fire jump to the next enclosure, consigning everyone who didn't make it out to their deaths. Meanwhile, the marked prisoners were everywhere, bending street lamps, causing explosions, creating havoc. Wes wanted to help them—hell, he wanted to
join
them—but he needed to find Eliza first.

Wes wanted to feel sympathy for the frightened people running through the streets, towels held to their mouths, fear in their eyes. He wanted to pity them, their homes aflame, but he could not ignore their richly tailored clothes, the fabric shiny and gaudy, their restored vintage cars now blackened by smoke. The residents of El Dorado were the lucky ones. They had literally walled themselves off from the End, living a life that hadn't existed for over a hundred years. It was warm inside, and flowers grew in boxes and grass. The air was moist. The domes were trapped in a time capsule, and their citizens lived in a fantasy. Maybe it was good for the citizens of El Dorado to smell the smoke, to shiver from the cold wind that was starting to blow through the broken glass, to feel fear for a change.

Wes had known fear his entire life. He had lived with fear, with cold, and with hunger, so maybe it was time the people of El Dorado learned how the other half lived.

You're full of ice. You had the watts, you'd live here, too. Wouldn't you?
A girl about his age ran past him, blood dripping from her head; she was crying, holding a young boy close to her side.
No one deserves this, no matter how they live.

“Boss?” Shakes and Farouk were up ahead and confused to find their leader behind them. “You dreaming, man?”

He
had
been dreaming, just as he had been when he was racing at the New Vegas speedway. He found himself doing it more and more since he'd left Nat, since the black ocean and all that happened on those dark waters. When he dreamt, it was as if he could see into another world.

“Sorry.” Wes ran to join them and took the point position, leading them past rows of polished sports cars toward the hospital doors. Gunfire thundered in the dome, the sound amplified by the hard surface of the gold hemisphere. Soldiers roamed the streets, taking up defensive positions, helping people out of their buildings, guiding them toward the last remaining exit.

EASTERN
EXIT WILL CLOSE IN ZERO MINUS
NINE
MINUTES.

“Look. They found the limo.” Farouk pointed to the alleyway where they had parked. Shots rang out and peppered the limo's plastic doors and its tires deflated.

Freeze it, that was our only way out of here.

The security officer appeared, the one from the guard post; he was the one who had shot at the car. He lifted a pair of high-tech binoculars and spotted Wes and his team.

“HALT!” he ordered, dropping the lenses and picking up his automatic.

“RUN!” Wes yelled, and the boys ran.

“We'll draw him off,” Shakes said. “Head for the hospital. We've got your back. Find Eliza, we'll meet you back at the alley in five—if not, we'll see you at the way station tonight. We know the drill.”

Wes nodded his thanks and waved as he parted ways with his friends. He watched them scramble between a line of parked cars, shooting over the guard's head, drawing his fire away from Wes and forcing him to find his own cover.

The gunfire stopped; the way was clear. Wes bolted for the hospital entry, dashing between the open doors, through the smoke and fire, and into the hospital, calling his sister's name.