Dust Read online

  I hug my knees to my chest and rest my chin on them.

  “I loved your mother like a sister,” Jaleera says. “It pained me greatly when Jexa sent her life-spark to the Dark. It’d be a shame to lose you, too.”

  I jerk my head away from her hand. She gives up and stands.

  “I have to go now,” she says. “I’m needed across the ocean. The shadows over there are too vast for even Jexa’s light.”

  My fingers curl tight around my knees. That name, Jexa, heats my blood. I narrow my eyes on Jaleera and note a fresh white scar on the bronze skin of her neck. “Tell me about these shadows,” I say. “Why have I never come across them in my work?”

  Jaleera turns her back to me, surveying the spreading forest below in contemplation. “Jexa and I flooded light across this land long before you arrived, that’s why. You needn’t worry about the patches that still darken distant lands. Concentrate on your own work and leave them to us.” When she looks back to me, all trace of her tenderness has evaporated. “You have one week to clear your first work area. Jexa is coming at the half moon to inspect it herself, and if there’s so much as a pottery handle left when she arrives, well, then not even I can save you from her wrath.”

  I shoot to my feet. Cold sweat runs down my brow. “A week? That’s—”

  “More leniency than you deserve from the Marshal,” says Jaleera with a piercing stare.

  I must look some frightened, because Jaleera’s eyes soften—well, they soften as much as a Watcher’s are capable of.

  “You just need to find your rhythm,” she says. She points northwest. “Head north to the coast, then follow it west through the desert. You’ll find just what you need there. It’s called a ‘drilling rig’. I think you’ll have less of an ethical dilemma reducing that eyesore to memory.”

  I sink back to the ground and watch the half-submerged sun sink deeper into the horizon. How many different stars have I watched set now? How many more will I have to fall in love with, only to eventually see as an insignificant speck in the night sky of a distant planet?

  “Did you hear me, Nya?”

  “I heard you, Jaleera.”

  Jaleera backs away while giving me a wary look over. She shakes her head, then she dives from the cliff edge and flies rapidly west. I watch her shrink toward the horizon until she disappears into red clouds. She’s gone before the sun, its light likely guiding her all the way to the shadows of a distant land.

  I push my toes into the fine dirt in search of the cooler bottom layer, wishing I could burrow away like the Ori. Life would be much easier if I could disappear as easily as my earth-working cousins. My ancestors could actually shrink to conceal themselves, but the Watchers altered our DNA to rob us of that ability. At two to three feet tall, the Ori were allowed to remain small for their underground work. They are minuscule compared to the seven foot, feather-winged Aeri that roam the skies above. Angels, the ancient folk here called our rain-making cousins. Egotistical air heads suits them better. But at five feet tall, myself and the Fori can’t slip into hiding among the trees so easily.

  Night falls fast in this place. In what feels like a blink, I’m staring at an unfamiliar pattern of white pinholes across a black sky. How many of those stars have warmed my skin? Around which speck of light out there shall I find the next planet I call ‘home’?

  Laughter comes from up high. In the sky directly above me, an Aeri flock swirls water vapor to form clouds that obscure my view of the night sky. Thunder rumbles. A raindrop splatters on my nose.

  Urgency rises like fear in me. I jump to my feet and sprint to the cliff edge, where I leap into the air and fly west over the forest. Playtime is over. Wet wings will ground me and I’m already facing an unrealistic deadline.

  My heart quivers. The Watcher Marshal will be less forgiving in her inspection than her second-in-command, so I must hurry.

  2

  —

  NYA

  MY WARM-UP PROJECT appears in the orange light of dawn. Following Jaleera’s directions, I’d flown north to the coast, then west past the forest’s western edge and into the desert. I’d kept a hard pace all night, bobbing in the breeze over cliffs that separate the sea from the expanse of silvery dunes to my left, before the ‘drilling rig’, as Jaleera had called it, came into view.

  The cube-shaped steel mosquito sits aslant in shallow water. As I draw closer, I notice brown corrosion has already claimed its place on the tower that looms over the rig’s upper platform.

  I’m supposed to start from the outside and work my way inward, peeling away the outer layers like skin from rotten fruit, until even the seeds are a memory to only myself. Instead, I flutter inside the interior compartments to see what this monstrosity is all about.

  At the bottom of a stairway, I enter a chamber where a seating apparatus rests behind a large block of furniture. On the floor lies a framed image under broken glass. I examine its wingless alien folk standing on a beach. If they had wings and pointed ears, they’d look just like me. Comparing their height to the palm tree beside them, I’d say we’re near the same size. They even smile like me. And in a moment, no one will ever know they existed. The thought makes me ill, so I set the piece down and leave.

  Outside, black slime streaks down the tower that looms over the main platform. I dab my finger onto the sticky substance and smell it. It doesn’t seem toxic, so I lick it.

  Yuck! It’s disgusting. The word petroleum comes to mind, and this stirs a negative vibration in me. It’s enough to get me started. Time to make some dust.

  I clamp a rusted rail at the edge of the structure’s main platform with both hands. In the shadow of the tower, the metal is cool and damp under my palms. I close my eyes, feel the trillions of minuscule particles vibrating together at the frequency that holds this steel tube in its solid form, and force a disruptive vibration through them.

  A small section of rail crumbles through my fingers. I open my eyes and watch a stream of particles wisp from my hands and sprinkle the water below. I frown at the sinking specks of dust, dissatisfied. But I know what I’m lacking here:

  Inspiration.

  I grip the next section of rail and think of my mother, how she abandoned me to start a hopeless war, and how she made me heir to the ashes. This gets my blood simmering. My arm hairs rise from static energy that radiates from inside me, and my fingers tingle with this higher frequency.

  I discharge this energy as a disruptive pattern through the steel’s molecular bonds, interrupting the rhythm that has kept this material defiant against all manner of disaster for who knows how long.

  The rail rattles all the way down and around the bend until—POOF—it bursts to dust. I watch the fine particles drift away in the breeze and feel a smile grace my face.

  I zip across the platform to the opposite rail and continue my work, breaking the chains that bind its particles, until the entire square tube is dust in the breeze. Then I move to the tower. Starting at the top, I shatter its internal chain in chunks from crown to base. It’s not the ideal approach, but when I become better practiced, I can start from the bottom and shatter it all at first touch. If I try that now, though, I might send it toppling into the sea, creating more work for myself. That’s just poor handiwork.

  It takes me until mid-afternoon to dust the entire structure. I hover above the patch of unblemished sea where the metal cube recently stood, but I feel none of the satisfaction I should. I’m born to work this magic, and I do feel a sense of purpose in the moment, but afterwards…

  A frown sags my brow. My cousins embrace their roles for the satisfaction of creating conditions that will foster numerous lifeforms. What do I offer by destroying the creations of those who came before them? Erasing their love and labor, sweat and blood, only to make room for others to do the same. Will I return to undo their creations as well?

  But this misery haunts me only briefly. Every bond I break brings me closer to the Final Gateway, the passage that will take me home. The
promise alone makes my heart flutter faster than my wings.

  I dive into the water, where endless molecular chains swirl around my skin and wash me clean. I love doing this at night to see the bioluminescence. Sea sparkle, the Nixies call it. If I listen closely, I think I can hear the songs of my aquatic cousins echoing from the depths as they work in what I’m told is a universe of its own.

  I wade out of the sea while wringing salt water from my hair. Wet sand squishes between my toes until I reach dry mounds, which sit before the cliff wall that blocks my view of the desert beyond. Though I’m pressed for time, I’m not going anywhere with wet wings, so I lie on my belly and bury my face in my arms as the sun dries my wings. I can only hope Jaleera had lied about Jexa coming to inspect my work to scare me into behaving.

  The swish of lapping waves and fizzing surf relaxes me, and I’m just dozing off when I hear the sound of rocks tumbling down the cliffs. I look up in time to see a figure retreat into a nearby crevice.

  I’m on my feet in a second. Who’d be way out here in this desolate land? The Ori would have too hard a time working this sand into soil, and the Fori have no business outside a forest. Perhaps a lost Aeri, but why remain on land? Maybe they’re hurt and can’t fly. Or it could be a Nixy who wandered from the sea and, in their return, got spooked by the sight of me.

  I trot to the cliff and enter the crevice, where black rock stands high to the left and right of me. The roofless corridor widens the farther I walk from the beach.

  A scuffing noise rises from behind a boulder ahead of me. I stop.

  “Why do you hide from me?” I say. She must be a Nixy. My sea-dwelling cousins are known to be reclusive, and usually need to be coaxed into interacting with other races. “You’ve nothing to fear. Come out so I can see you.”

  A boy with skin the shade of rich earth steps from behind the rock.

  My jaw goes slack. A boy. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a male counterpart that I almost forgot they existed. Have the Nixy-folk been allowed to keep their brothers in the sea all this time? A flash of envy hits me. But I assume too much.

  “I’ve not seen you before. Which Hive are you from?” I clap my hands to cut myself off. “Wait, let me guess.”

  I step closer to examine his spindly frame and wiry muscles, trying to determine which he uses most. He appears to be the same age and development as myself… What strains does his job demand of him? “Let’s see…” I say. “You’re too big to be an Ori, and I don’t see any gills or scales on you. That means you’re either a tall Fori, or a short Aeri.” I try to walk around him for a look at his back, but he turns to remain facing me, yet not before I make a peculiar observation.

  I frown. “Where are your wings?”

  Rocks crunch above. Pebbles tumble down the cliff face to my left.

  A startling realization sucks the breath from my chest. This boy is no cousin of mine.

  The specimen before me looks up and around, his eyes wide in alarm. He throws up both arms and shouts, “Stop!”

  Then he rushes toward me.

  Reflexes break my paralyzed state. I spring as high as I can, my four wings fluttering furiously to lift me above the crevice. A projectile whistles past my head from the cliff tops, and I bank right to narrowly avoid a second bolt. Several more streak past as I rise higher into the sky, until a blow to my chest blasts the wind out of me.

  I drop several feet and fall into vertical flight. My hands go instinctively to my ribs, where I find a length of hardened plastic protruding from my skin. I wrap my fingers around the narrow shaft and turn it to dust. Clear fluid leaks from the wound, sparkling in the sunlight. I cover the hole with one hand and fly hard inland, carrying a burden worse than any physical wound.

  We’re too early!

  3

  —

  DEKA

  I SHOULD REJOICE as I watch the demon fly away. One arrow had found its mark in her chest, and though our internal anatomies may differ, I suspect that the wound, coupled with the exertion of flight, will see her falling to her death before she can report our location. Already her flight path bobs up and down as she struggles to stay aloft.

  Her kind are the devils who killed my parents, yet my voice is absent from the cheers of my tribes-folk on the surrounding dunes. While they celebrate, I raise a hand to shield the sun for a better look at our retreating enemy.

  Marlok mounts the dune before me to block my view. Our war chief raises his crossbow high to claim the strike and the honor that comes with it. His crazed eyes lock onto me from behind a veil of dreadlocks. He demands my praise. I offer him a slight nod.

  Our warriors chant a victory tune as they slide down into the crevice and file toward the cave entrance. Marlok remains above and joins me at the crevice lip.

  “I’m glad your father wasn’t here to see you today,” he says. “A man of his worth should never know the shame of seeing his son cower before his prey.”

  My jaw clenches. “I did not cower. I was unarmed.”

  “Those demons killed your parents. Any son worthy of their name would have strangled that creature with his bare hands, or died trying.”

  No doubt Marlok would enjoy watching me die. My father and mother held differing opinions on how to combat the demons, and I have devoted myself to ensuring my mother’s strategy endures. We must learn from our enemy. Marlok believes this approach threatens our colony’s security. He follows the way of my father. The way of the warrior. Fight the enemy face to face by attacking to kill at first sight. This has led many of our own to their deaths. For this high cost, we have gained so little. To endure, we must study our enemy and learn their ways. Through that we can engineer our victory. Or else this fight will carry on until we are all dead. I will watch everyone I grew up with die. Those like Mali.

  She slides down the dune slope to join us. My reflection in each of her round goggle lenses grows larger in her approach.

  “Did you see its eyes, Deka?” she asks, her stare snapping back to the shrinking dot in the sky. “Were they all black like the others say?”

  Marlok throws her into a headlock. I lunge at his waist to separate them, but he grabs my arm and flings me aside like a piece of plastic.

  “I trusted you to watch the entrance,” Marlok growls. “You let Deka out in broad daylight, and now that thing knows we’re here. If it lives long enough—”

  “It won’t!” I say from the ground.

  “Shut up, boy!”

  Boy! he calls me. At twenty-one years old, he’s got only five years on me. But since we lost all our fighting adults to the sky demons, command of the war party fell to him at age sixteen. Forty-first in line he was, but he acts as if Grand Mother’s wisdom had declared him chief successor when our tribe boasted its peak strength.

  He shoves Mali to the ground beside me and points a condemning finger at her. “You think I’ll give you special treatment because you’re my sister. Well, it’s time you learned a valuable lesson. You’re off duty until you convince me you can do as you’re told.”

  Mali’s brow creases above her green goggles. I’d made these for her coming of age five years ago, and I swear I’ve never seen them anywhere but over her eyes or around her neck.

  “That means you’ll turn in your weapon,” Marlok adds.

  Mali’s jaw goes slack. She hugs her crossbow to her chest.

  Marlok’s eyes soften. He shakes his head, his face rife with disappointment. “You two put our colony at risk today.”

  Neither of us can argue that. We only ever come to surface at night, to bathe in the sea or to scavenge washed up polymer. That seems to be the only time the demons don’t come around. Unless it’s three days to either side of a full moon. We learned that one the hard way.

  “Give me a weapon,” I say as I crawl to my feet. If I want another chance to study one of those creatures, I must earn Marlok’s trust. It is he who decides who sees the light of day. He is the gatekeeper I must appease to get my hands on one of those demo
ns. “If any of those things come back,” I say, “I’ll kill them or die trying if that’s what you want.”

  Marlok’s eyes narrow on me. I see he’s contemplating. He strokes his chin. “You did get pretty close to it,” he says, nodding faintly. “Within striking distance, actually. It even seemed amused by you, if you can compare their expressions to ours. Fine.”

  He draws a dagger hanging from his waist and offers it to me by the blade. “If that thing comes back, you’ll drive this into its heart. Or you’ll—”

  “Die trying,” I say, accepting the knife by its bone handle.

  A smile tugs at the corner of Marlok’s mouth, as if he’s counting on it. “Come, before the sun cooks us into a nice meal for the demons.”

  As Marlok slides down the path in the crevice’s rock face, my eyes remain fixed on the black dot shrinking toward the horizon. To get my hands on a specimen such as her would offer great insight into their weaknesses. And much more, maybe. Not only did the thing speak to me, it did so in our language! What secrets could I squeeze from it? Enough to give us an edge against her kind, no doubt.

  But at that distance I’d never reach her if she fell. The heat would kill me before I made it even halfway, so I turn to join Mali stomping toward our cave entrance behind the boulder.

  I follow the labyrinth of rock passages deep underground. Light from outside fades until I’m walking in darkness, but I don’t need light to conquer this maze. When the first sky demons arrived fifteen years ago, our parents dug this spiderweb of tunnels as a last line of defense. Now it serves as our first. Growing up, we learned to navigate the passages until we could do so in the dark. Should the enemy ever enter our domain, these twisted tunnels will give our lookout a chance to reach the colony in time to issue a proper warning.

  The darkness cannot hide Mali’s anger. She stomps her feet so loud that I know exactly which passage she takes off the main vein, which lets me know the one I should avoid. Her anger is my fault. She needs time to cool down while I find a way to make it up to her. Neither of our tasks will be easy. Usually the youngest warriors, like herself at fifteen, are assigned to defend the non-fighters in the escape caverns. Ushering the elderly and feeble while the senior warriors form our colony’s shield above, Mali called that hide-and-go-seek, and she hated every second of it. So she trained hard and managed to earn a spot as one of our colony’s eight lookouts. A position she held proudly until today.