Chapter Text
The wooden blocks were not as Crow had left them. He sat down on the floor and studied them carefully. When he’d left them, they had been placed in a neat row in order of size, leading from the biggest block – one almost the size of his head – on the left to the smallest on the right. They were still in order of size, but now they formed a tower with the biggest block at the base and the smallest at the top. Crow put Rabbit down on the floor and began to reorganise the blocks, placing the smallest on top of a nearby book before he knocked over the rest of the tower and started over. He’d put them in groups by colour this time, he decided.
The smallest block was gone when he reached for it. Crow stared at the empty space for a second, then shrugged and put the second-smallest block there instead. That, too, disappeared the second he took his optics off it. A muffled giggle reached his hearing sensors. Crow picked up a third block and placed it on the book, then crouched down on the floor and watched the block like a hawk.
A hand reached up from behind the book and closed around the block. Crow threw himself forward and grabbed the hand around its wrist before it could steal the block away.
“Ouch.”
Crow peeked over the edge of the book. Both of the stolen blocks were lying on the floor next to the thief.
“I knew it was you,” he said.
Neuvieme pulled her hand free and sat up. “No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did.”
“No you didn’t, no you didn’t!”
“Yes I did, yes I did, yes I did!”
“No you didn’t times infinity!”
“Yes I did times infinity plus one!” said Crow triumphantly. Neuvy scowled, defeated by this outstanding logic.
“Oh, yeah? Well…” She scrambled to her feet and lunged over the book. “…I’ve got your cuddly!” Neuvy snatched up Rabbit and ran off, waving the toy above her head.
“Give it back!” Crow grabbed the smallest block and threw it as hard as he could at Neuvy.
“Ow!” Neuvy dropped Rabbit and clawed at the back of her head. “Da-ad! Crow threw a block at me!”
A stifled groan came from around the corner of the bookcase and Sixte appeared, rubbing the sides of his head. “All right, all right, let me have a look…” He knelt down and inspected the back of his daughter’s head. “There’s nothing to see. Does it hurt when I do this?” he asked, and lightly pressed the tips of his fingers against it.
“No…”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three and a half,” said Neuvy.
“No, it’s f- No, wait, you’re right, three and a half. You’re fine.” Sixte stood up and rounded on Crow. “What did you do that for?”
Crow held up his retrieved toy. “She stole Rabbit,” he said as if this should answer any questions Sixte still had.
Sixte folded his arms. “What would your mother say?”
“To, to, to aim for her back instead of her head an’ not to use weapons inra…urre… badly.”
“Aye, she would. That may have been a bad example. Right. Neuvy, sit down right where you are. You too, Crow. I’m going to sit here for the next quarter of an hour, and if either of you speak to each other or try to wind each other up, you’re both going to bed three hours early and you’re definitely not getting to come out into the ruins tomorrow.” Crow muttered something. “’Fraid I didn’t catch that.”
“I said you’re not my dad!”
Sixte just smiled. “Aye, well. I’m the only adult in the building, and – your dad or not – that means I’m in charge. Now…” He lifted his right hand and pressed the index finger against his mouth. Neuvy and Crow fell into a sullen, restless silence.
The minutes ticked slowly past. Eventually, Sixte stood up and stretched his arms above his head. “All right. It’s a nice evening and the others’ll be back soon. Go run about in the courtyard for a while – sunlight’s good for you. And I don’t want any more fuss from the pair of you.” He watched them both run off towards the doorway and ran a hand through his hair. “Makers,” he said quietly to himself. “When did I turn into an authority figure?”
Neuvy and Crow managed to get through the rest of the day without killing each other. Thick black clouds gathered overhead just before sunset, and a heavy rain began to fall. The Beta ushered them both inside.
The Beta suspects that the cubs’ parents will be most displeased if their offspring rusts in this wet – and it is already well past the time that the cubs should be asleep. It lowered its head and very gently picked Neuvy up by the back of her collar when she dawdled. Listen to the den-watcher.
“I’m not even sleepy,” protested Neuvy. The effect of this firm sentence was diluted somewhat by the enormous yawn she gave afterwards.
Hmph. Little liar. It nudged Crow in the back with a forepaw, pushing him towards the twins’ globe, and carried Neuvy into the Science wing. Tierce stood up at the sound of its footsteps against the flagstoned floor.
“Beta, what have I told you about carrying her like that? She’s not a puppy!”
The Beta placed Neuvy on the floor next to her. Then why does Sixte insist on calling it ‘pup’?
“I don’t know, he’s just funny that way.” Tierce reached down and took Neuvy’s hand. “Come on, it’s past your bedtime.”
“No it’s not.”
“Don’t start.”
“But I want to stay up! Crow gets to stay up!”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s younger than you – he usually goes to bed even earlier.” Tierce picked Neuvy up and carried her towards the little alcove where she slept. “Right,” she said, pulling the blanket up under Neuvy’s chin. “No more nonsense tonight, all right?”
“Mm-hmm…”
“All right.” Tierce lightly stroked her daughter’s forehead and began to sing quietly.
“Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye…”
After three verses, Neuvy rolled onto her side and closed her optics, pulling the blanket around herself and breathing steadily. Tierce smiled and leant down to kiss her forehead. “See you in the morning,” she whispered, and pulled the curtain shut over the alcove.
To Neuvy’s credit, she actually had fallen asleep; she hadn’t just been pretending in order to humour Tierce. It wasn’t her fault that she was awoken by a massive crash of thunder in the middle of the night. She rolled out of bed and tiptoed out into the main hall, pausing to pull her fleece hat down firmly over her hearing sensors.
The main hall always looked very different at night. The light that normally shone from the globe had been extinguished as usual, but the storm clouds blocked out the moon and the stars as well, turning everything almost pitch black. Outside, the wind howled through the buildings and rain drummed against the roofs and windows. A flash of lightning revealed a small figure silhouetted against one of the windows high above, perched on top of a bookcase. Neuvy swallowed and climbed the ladders up to the top shelf.
Crow knelt on top of the bookcase with his face pressed against the window. Neuvy sat down next to him.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Watching the storm,” he said without looking at her. Another lightning bolt flashed down to the ground in the distance.
“D’you know what makes lightning?” asked Neuvy.
“Yeah, the twins told me. They said it’s, it’s, it’s like when you touch something an’ it gives you a shock, but lots bigger, an’ the thunder’s just the noise it makes.”
“The twins talked to you? They didn’t just do the eye-flashy thing?”
“That’s how they talk,” scoffed Crow. “Don’t you know that?”
“You, like, you know what they say when they do that?”
“Yeah. Don’t you?”
“No. How do you?”
Crow just shrugged. After a couple of minutes, he said, “Your mum walks funny.”
“You walk funny!”
“Well, she does. If you watch, it’s like she stands on one leg for longer than the other. Always.”
“Oh. I asked Dad that once. He said a bad monster attacked her before I was born and broke her leg and now it isn’t as strong as it should be. Did you see that!?” Neuvy stood up and pointed out at the storm.
“See what?”
“Look, look! There’s something out there, in the sky! Wait for another flash… There! Did you see it?”
There was something out in the air above the wasteland, being tossed around mercilessly by the wind. The light faded and they lost sight of it for a moment, but it reappeared for a second when another bolt of lightning split the air – just long enough to see it fall to the ground.
“Ooh,” said Crow into the silence that followed. The storm gradually faded away outside. “What was that?”
“Dunno.” Neuvy adjusted the set of her hat and watched as the rain stopped altogether. “But I want to find out. C’mon.” She started to climb back down the ladder.
“We’re not allowed to go out on our own… Mum said…”
“You think your mum always does what she’s told?”
“No…”
“Our parents are always going out an’ finding good stuff outside. If we go out, yeah, and we find the thing that fell from the sky, they’ll be dead impressed.”
Crow frowned at her for a few seconds before he nodded decisively and picked up the ever-present Rabbit. “I want my scarf first.”
The two youngsters crept out of the Library door into the dark, wet ruins, taking care not to wake the Beta as it slept next to the globe. Neuvy turned around to get her bearings, then pointed in the right direction. “It was this way. Out to the, the south. And then we can bring it back for morning and show everyone what we got.”
Filled with a new sense of purpose, they set off towards the wasteland. Their first real obstacle appeared when they reached the gorge. The nearest real bridge across it had been all but destroyed a long time ago: the wooden planks of the walkway were all either gone completely or far too rotten to bear even a young ragdoll’s weight. Neuvy looked at it pensively.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she suggested.
“What?” said Crow. “We can’t go back now – if we go back and we don’t have anything to show them and they’ve woken up and they find out that we went out on our own without asking them, they’ll be really upset and they’ll never let us go out again and…” He took a deep breath. “…And I wanna find out what it was that fell from the sky. Look, there’s still a bit we can go across.” He pointed towards the spar of metal that had once supported the planks, but paused when they actually reached the end of it. “Uhhh… You go first.”
“Scaredy-cat.”
An hour after crossing the gorge, it seemed they were no closer to finding whatever had fallen from the sky, and it had started to rain again. Neuvy had just caught hold of Crow’s arm when the ground gave way beneath their feet and they tumbled down a muddy, impossibly steep slope in a tangle of cloth, metal and rainwater.
Crow sat up in the mud, still with Rabbit clamped firmly against his chest. He opened his mouth to complain, but the sound never came out. Instead, he stared blankly ahead, open-mouthed. Neuvy picked herself up and turned around to see what had shocked him so much.
There was something lying in the mud less than a metre away from them. It was difficult to see exactly what colour it was in the dark, but it was pale and much bigger than either of them with three dark holes in one side. Neuvy edged closer to get a better look at it. As she watched, the rain washed away a little of the mud from around it and several white, curving shapes appeared on the other side. Something slid away from beneath it and the whole thing moved. Neuvy didn’t wait to see what it did; she grabbed Crow by his arm again and ran as fast as she could away from the skull. Very soon, it was lost in the dark behind them.
“Neuvy, I wanna go home,” said Crow. “It’s dry and warm and Mum won’t let the skull-monsters get us if they come after us.”
“Um…” Neuvy looked in all directions. They all looked exactly the same. “It’s this way,” she said firmly, pointing. Crow took her hand trustingly and followed her further into the storm – in precisely the wrong direction.
9 woke the next morning to the discordant sound of wood and steel hammering against bronze. Next to him, 7 reached for her spear on reflex.
“Get up! Get up, both of you!”
7 rolled out of bed and ran for the globe’s entrance, grabbing Sixte’s wrist before he could slam his fist against the bronze again. “What’s wrong?”
“Neuvy’s gone – she’s not in her bed and she’s not in any of her usual play-spots. Is Crow with you? Maybe he knows where she’s got to.”
7 nodded. “He’s still asleep – I’ll go wake him.” She propped her spear against the shell of the globe and walked over to the section they had curtained off for Crow’s bedroom. Sixte folded his arms and waited as the warrior pushed the curtain aside.
“He’s not here,” she said quietly.
“What?” 9 sat up and rushed across to look over her shoulder.
“Sixte, is Neuvy with the others?” Tierce touched her mate’s shoulder. “I can’t find her anywhere in the Engineering section, or any of the ones around it.”
“No, and Crow’s gone missing too.”
“What?”
9 backed away from the curtain. “3, 4? Are you two here?” The twins’ hooded heads appeared up above, over the edge of the ledge they shared. They had obviously heard everything; the worry was stamped plainly on their faces. “Search the main hall. 7, help me search the Arts wing. Tierce, Sixte – the Science wing. Where’s Freyja?”
“Right here.” Freyja appeared on Sixte’s other side and raised a hand in greeting.
“Go ask the Beta if it’s seen them.”
Three hours later, everyone gathered next to the globe.
“They’re not in the Arts wing,” reported 7.
“And there’s no sign of them in Sciences,” said Tierce. A quick eye-flicker from the twins confirmed that the youngsters had not been in the main hall either.
The Beta laid its head flat on the ground and covered its eyes with its front feet. The Beta is a terrible den-watcher. The cubs must have crept away while it slept, and now the rain has dispersed their scents – it cannot track them. It peeked out at 7 between two of its claws. If harm has befallen the cubs, the Fiercest Prey may do whatever it sees fit to the Beta. 7 looked as if she intended to take it up on that offer.
“They can’t have got far,” said Freyja. “They’re only little. If we search the ruins around the Library, we’re bound to find them sooner or later. I’ll go get my axe.”
“She’s right,” said 7. Her voice was calm, but she was holding on to both her spear and 9’s hand very tightly. “I’ll search the old Cathedral – I know it better than any of you. The rest of you, split up to look in the other buildings.”
Sixte gave Tierce a hug the second the others had left. “She’ll be fine,” he said, as much to himself as to Tierce.
“I know,” said Tierce quietly. “But what if she’s not?”
“Then I’ll fix her, like I always do. But right now we need to look for her – let’s go.”
“You lied,” said Crow accusingly.
“No, I didn’t,” said Neuvy as she looked around at their completely unfamiliar surroundings. The rain had finally stopped. The city must have been behind them; they were somewhere in what Neuvy’s parents always called the wasteland and what Crow’s called the Emptiness, but it seemed to her that the names weren’t really true, at least any more. There wasn’t much to see, but there was grass and bugs, and some young trees – just saplings – which looked so high to Neuvy that it seemed like they almost reached the sky.
“You lied. You said this was the way home.”
“I didn’t lie! I made a mistake. It’s not the same.” She sat down on the ground. “I want my dad. He’d know what to do. Maybe it’s that way,” she added hopefully. Crow gave her a look of deep scepticism. “Well, maybe not. But it might be. Let’s go look.”
Crow screwed his optics shut and hugged Rabbit more tightly. “No. I’m staying here.”
“Fine. I’ll go, and you’ll stay here, and you’ll get eaten by a skull-monster and then you’ll be sorry.” Neuvy got to her feet and stomped off through the grass. Crow watched in silence for a few seconds. Neuvy did not reappear.
“Wait for me!”
Neuvy was waiting on the other side of a fallen spar of wood. “I knew you’d chicken out.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I-” An enormous black shadow fell over them both and Neuvy abruptly fell silent, staring up at the cloudy sky and the dark shape approaching them.
The shadow flexed its vast, ragged wings and swooped down towards them, black claws gripping the soil underfoot and a big, sharp beak stabbing down at the two youngsters. The beak opened and a harsh, hoarse caw echoed through the wasteland. Neuvy and Crow did the only thing they really knew how to at such times: they clung to each other and screamed for their parents, closing their optics as tightly as they could.
“Desine, Audacia! Pueri sunt modo.”
The cawing stopped and the draught from the shadow’s wings died down. Neuvy opened one eye to see an unfamiliar ragdoll crouched in front of them, watching them both with concern. He was wearing metal armour – it looked like it was made out of a tin can – with a cloak of faded red cloth pinned to the shoulders. A long, thin spear made of a metal skewer lay on the ground just behind him.
“Unde uenistis?” he asked. Neuvy looked blank. The stranger frowned, not unkindly – more from confusion. “Quae sunt nomina uestra?”
Neuvy swallowed and nudged Crow, who opened his optics and gave a little squeak of surprise at the sight of the stranger. “Uh…” Neuvy began. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The confusion cleared from the stranger’s face and he smiled, immediately making him look both younger and friendlier. “The Machine Empire tongue,” he said in sudden understanding. “I haven’t heard that language in… I can’t even remember.” He sat down on the ground. “My name is Decem. This ill-mannered creature,” he reached out with one hand and tapped the shadow – a huge black bird, Neuvy could now see – on its leg, “is Audacia. You?”