Windrunner's Daughter (27 page)

Before her, the Runners were muttering and shouting curses. Words chased one another up and down the line, unable to go anywhere but forward and back. Jay’s face was pale and ghostlike and he talked in an urgent undertone to Colm, who was shaking his head.

Then she lost them as the main entrance opened.

Wren only had a moment to see an expanse of lavender sky before the crowd eclipsed the crack of light.  

Suddenly she was grateful for the safety of her cage as the colony entered the auditorium. Families clustered together; the ill supporting the dying. A few healthy men and women held their sleeves over their faces as coughs blew through the gathering like the cracking of joists.

She focused on the people immediately before her, her mind skipping to the trivial and latching onto it gratefully. Fashions here were similar to those of Elysium, but women’s dresses were shorter and cut lower in the front and their head-scarves were tied low across their foreheads. The men wore their tunics longer and their trousers looser. Many of the tunics were hooded, but most wore them down over their shoulders. A single man stood out to her; his hood was pulled low over his eyes, hiding his face in the folds of its shadows. He looked like Death himself.

These people were here to watch her die. Wren could look at them no longer. And indeed they soon became a faceless mass, pressing against the chained Runners; an amorphous hungry beast.

When the door closed behind the last of the crowd there was a moment of confused hush broken only by the coughs of the sick and dying.

Erb lifted his voice to the ceiling. “We finally know how the plague started. This girl, who thought to fool us all, broke Runner and Designer Law by taking wings not her own.”

He looked at Wren and gestured sharply for her to stand. She rose on shaking legs, careful to balance against the swing of the cage.

“Remember our bargain,” Erb whispered. “Make them believe and I’ll let the Runners go.”

Orel leaned close to her. “They have to
hate
you, Wren.”

Wren nodded and for some reason her eyes went to the hooded man. She would talk to him alone, persuade Death to let her people be. “I-I’ve been Running for ages -” she began.

“Liar!” Jay wailed, his tears showing in the growing daylight. “Why say that? You never used wings before. You never had the chance.”

His voice drowned in the wave of disgust hurled from the crowd. The hooded man was lost for a moment in the surging crowd and Wren looked at Colm. His face was white and he was standing perfectly still.

How very like Chayton he was. Now he watched her with calculating intensity and she could almost read his mind: Wren’s life or theirs? His sister, or all the Runners? A girl who’ll die at the hands of Convocation anyway - a sister who let a Grounder take wings - versus a war that could destroy their whole way of life?

There really was only one conclusion.  

Finally tears blurred his eyes. Colm’s decision had been made. He caught Wren’s gaze and then, with a sudden tilt of his head, indicated Orel.

Wren understood. He’d let her die for them, but Orel would not Run free.

But Jay was still shouting. “Leave Wren alone,” he cried. “She was trying to help ...”

“Shut
up,
Jay! Colm, shut him up.”

He read her lips. Although Colm’s chains shortened his reach, he grabbed Jay around the neck and pulled him close. Jay struggled while Colm muttered urgently in his ear. Then he started to shake his head and kicked harder for freedom. Colm tightened his grip and Wren had to look away. Her eyes went to Adler, who was looking at her as if she’d eaten his children. Everywhere she turned she saw horror at what she had done. The freedom of Running had felt so right, but now it really did seem blasphemous.

As her adrenaline started to seep away, shock set in. She’d never see her mother or father again, never have a family of her own.

She was suddenly fighting for air. Hunching over, she groped beneath her shirt for the tucked end of the sheet that bound her chest and pulled it out. She wriggled to loosen the bands and as they fell at her feet and her breasts sprung free, her whole body shivered with relief.

The cage jerked and her face was splattered with foul smelling liquid. She wiped her cheek with a shaking hand and stared at the rotted soy patty that oozed over the bars. Soiled baby-pads smashed against a higher joist and, as if that was a signal, rubbish rained over the heads of the Runners and struck her cage like a dust-storm.

Most of it erupted on the bars, but some got through and her clothes were soon fouled. Mouldy soy products slimed her bare arms and rancid chiz mushed against her cheek.

She cringed in the swinging cage. From the corner of her eye she saw the Council and Lister retreat. They left her cage exposed in the centre of the platform; a lone target. Even Orel went with them, abandoning her finally and completely, without even a pitying glance in her direction.

In the end the crowd ran out of rubbish and instead used their voices to attack.

With her eyes tightly closed, Wren started to bang her head on a joist. Harder and harder she hit herself, because each time she knocked her head it rang and for one blessed second she could hear nothing.

After an eternity the crowd’s cries quieted. Slowly Wren opened her eyes, rubbed slime from her face and saw the guard sent out by the Councillor. He stood in front of the Runners pointing a gun. She lurched for the bars, scanning desperately for her brothers.

Then she realised that the Runners were silent and that none had fallen. The gun had not been fired. The muzzle was, however, aimed squarely at Colm.

‘Oh no, oh no, oh no’;
heart thumping it’s message of dread, Wren rubbed her stinging eyes and saw a second guard standing over him.

Colm tilted his hand to show Wren a small package. Then he tucked it into his shirt.

The guard moved away and both stepped back to allow the Council to return to the platform. Erb stopped close to her cage. “I am not an unreasonable man.” His eyes were yellowing as if left out in the sun too long; he turned them on her with a look that was almost regretful. “If you don’t hold up yer end of the bargain, I will shoot your brother and take it back.”

Wren nodded meekly.

“Then let us continue.” The Councillor waved for Orel to come forward and her erstwhile partner strode over the boards like a conquering hero.

The sun had finally come to Vaikuntha. Climbing the wall, its rays now found their way through the windbreak and into the avenue of windows, just in time to catch his wings and turn them to pure light. He swept his hair from his forehead and, even though he was a hated Runner, Wren could feel the adoring sighs of half the audience.

“As you were saying.” The Councillor gestured and Orel began to speak.

Chapter twenty-two

Orel told how Wren arrived at the secondary station, having known not to land on the main wall despite the fact that so many other
experienced,
Runners had made the mistake of landing there. How he had found her half naked at the station, yet he appeared to be the only one who could see through her disguise. How he had crept out to find the Councillors that night and told them what was going on and how they realised that such unnatural behaviour could cause a shift in the order of things, a change so great that it could cause other unnatural occurrences - such as a plague.

This was a community that had started out as scientists, who still worked to investigate the biology of awakening Martian species and who had blended Martian DNA with dead-earth organisms to help them survive on Mars. Their willingness to believe that Wren’s actions could have unbalanced nature and caused a plague made her realise just how strong their superstitious worship of the Designers had grown. Wren hunched as the crowd hushed, as though her actions were so abhorrent that an outcry was not enough.

The eerie quiet was terrifying and Wren shook so hard her bones jarred against the bars.

Even Jay was silent. He stood with Colm’s hand on his shoulder, eyes burning into her cage as if he could break it open with the force of his stare. The important thing was that, for now, Colm had him under control.

    She realised that the Councillor was looking at her expectantly. “I
said
the beast will now
confess
.” He glared at her; his puppet failing to perform.

Wren swallowed a mass of thorns that seemed to have lodged in her throat. Could she really do this to herself?

Her mother’s face swum before her own; how could she not?

Her voice though, had left her. Devastated at Wren’s betrayal of herself, or perhaps being the only part of her actually able to escape, it had fled. She tried to speak, but nothing came out; no words, only sounds: small squeaks that had her hanging her head in shame.

“Speak.” The Councillor’s roar made her jump and as if in a dream she saw the guard raising his gun and pointing it towards her chain-linked brothers.

Colm was stood by the curve of the house flying Jay’s red kite. His thin, serious face scrunched in concentration as he twitched his fingers and made the crimson square whirl in widening circles. Their father said it was the best way for a young Runner to get to know wind patterns. Still, when Colm saw his little sister watching, he helped her hold the string and showed her how to make the bright dot dance.

As she fought the desire of the wind and exerted her own control over the fragile mote in its grasp, Wren’s chest expanded. Her feet wanted to fly off the porch and follow the kite into the air. It was at that moment she knew she wanted to be a Windrunner.

“I-” shamefully her voice returned and she looked at the bars beneath her feet.

“Louder.” The Councillor gestured towards the roof as if to tell her how far her story must reach and tears filled her eyes. She had to make the Vaikunthans hate her even more; force them to unite with the chained Runners in their horror. Her death alone had to be enough for them.

She met as many eyes as she could, challenging them from her wooden cage, then settled, once more, on the hooded figure. Eyelessly he watched in the centre of the throng and it seemed easier to speak to a man who could not show her his disgust.

“At first I didn’t realise what I was doing.”

“Go on.” Erb leaned in like a toddler with a bedtime story he didn’t want to miss.

“I-I’ve been flying for months. Stealing my brother’s wings and going out. I don’t care that it’s blasphemy. I just want to fly. And why shouldn’t I?” She grabbed the bars in sudden passion. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to fly? I’ve heard every lesson, mended wings and repaired nets. Why shouldn’t I get to fly too? I’m good enough, better even than they are. But because I’m a
girl
-” She shook her head. “Because I’m a girl the most I can hope for is to be Sphere-Mistress when my mother is gone. Is that fair?” Her eyes went directly to Genna, who was standing with her mouth open. “Why shouldn’t girls get to be Runners if they want to?”

It was Genna who broke the weighted silence. “Blasphemy,” she hissed. “Filth.” She patted her dress frantically as if looking for something to throw. When her hands came up empty she clenched them into fists. “You’ll pay, you …you …” She sputtered off, unable to find words harsh enough to complete her sentence.

Wren looked away from the floundering Runner woman. “I-I first realised that it was
me
carrying the plague a few weeks ago. The Runners had stopped coming so I went back to a colony I’d visited. They were all dead. Everywhere I returned it was the same. Places I’d never been, people were fine, but places I’d visited, people were dead or dying. It had to be
me
.” Her voice cracked at the enormity of her lie, but she kept going, forced herself to tell the tale. “I didn’t
care
,” she shouted. “Why should I care about a bunch of … of Land-crawlers. I-I kept flying. It’s what I was meant to do.”

Now
the people shrieked for her blood. As if her words had smashed an invisible barrier they surged forward and Wren screamed, suddenly terrified for the Runners; certain they would be crushed.

The hooded man stood still and allowed the crowd to surge around him, like a rock in a tide. She could sense the tension in him; he seemed to be waiting for something.

A concussive blast shook the floor beneath Wren’s cage and the Runners were knocked sideways; they landed in a pile of men and chains.

Shocked silence choked the air and then a second blast scattered the audience like seeds. They fell, screaming, tripping and clambering over one another. The figure Wren had been watching vanished among the panicked crowd.

“Fire!” The word started quietly, barely discernible over the panicking crowd; then grew, as if blown into a gale. “Fire …”

An alarm began to sound; a bright, blaring squeal that cut through the walls of the building like wings through a thermal.

“The fuel tanks.” The Lister was yelling now. “There are more down there. This whole level could go up. Get out!”

The Runners were abandoned by a retreating tide of people who, unsure which way to turn, started to pull towards their homes.

Wren gripped the bars. “Let me out!” She shouted as Erb and the other Councillors ran from the stage. They ignored her. She supposed it made no difference to them. She was condemned to death anyway.

Panic continued to rise in the audience like smoke and Wren stared as gold bloomed outside the windows; a flash of brightness that turned grey round the edges as the useless windbreaks caught and shrivelled into cinders.

Vaikunthans stampeded for the exit. Through the open door, Web saw curls of ash falling like filthy snow, turning the morning to dusk and coating the straining sun.

“What about the Runners?” She shook the bars of her cage, but there was no-one left with a key to their chains. The guards, the Lister and the Councillors had fled and the Runners were trapped, chained above the exploding fuel tanks. Only Orel remained unfettered, standing uncertainly on the platform near her cage.