Catastrophe in the Firesnake Read online

  Apek sighed. “Where shall I drop you off?”

  “At that town,” YuFang said.

  Apek pulled up outside a string of open-fronted shops and said goodbye.

  From the town, Yasmin and YuFang shared the aurashield to stay dry and followed the footpath leading to the river for a mile.

  YuFang pointed at the high water level. “Those silt banks are way under now. We’ll never find anywhere to lay down.”

  They pursued the path running parallel to the river, and after an hour, the gulley flattened out. In the distance, stilted houses perched on either side of the river, like pelicans waiting for the surrounding plains to flood so they could catch fish.

  Yasmin squinted and pointed. “Boats!”

  “Perhaps we could offer a local some money to borrow his boat.”

  Yasmin smiled, and her ponytail bounced as her pace picked up. “I wonder if we could buy some food too. I’m starved.”

  “Hmm. The locals will think we’re rich if they see our aurashield.”

  “Shall we turn it off and get drenched?” Yasmin asked.

  “No. Just let the locals think what they like.”

  She giggled. “Not sure what they’ll think of a Feili monk in these regions.”

  “Sattchis don’t mind Feilis. These are people, anyway. Not terrorists.”

  “I know. Just saying. Don’t wanna create friction.”

  “If I take off my gear and they recognise me as a fugitive, believe me—that’ll be worse.”

  As the rain beat down on the muddy flood plains, red-skinned women and girls sat on their sheltered verandahs weaving fishing nets. None paid attention to YuFang and Yasmin approaching on the footpath seven metres below, even with the expensive aurashield gleaming around them.

  YuFang slipped on his translation device as Yasmin hollered to an overweight woman hanging wet laundry under her stilted house. “Excuse me. Are there any stalls around her to buy food?”

  The woman pointed her chin towards a house farther along.

  YuFang switched off the airSphere as they approached. Under the stilted house, a man boiled a pot of water with peppercorns and chillies floating on its surface. On a counter sat little plastic baskets full of different vegetables, bean products, and noodles. Yasmin took an empty bowl and filled it with tofu balls, rice noodles and various greens. YuFang did the same.

  The man tipped the contents of each bowl into two drop-down sieves and placed them in the boiling water. “Want the soup with those?”

  Yasmin nodded, so YuFang nodded too.

  “Peanut sauce? It’s spicy.”

  They agreed, and then carried their meals to the only table, pulling two plastic stools from underneath. After they slurped up the food, Yasmin asked the man if they could rent a boat for a few hours. His eyes lit up when she offered five million Inarmuzzan dollars, and he told them to take his boat for the day.

  Yasmin warned the man they’d be using the boat to meditate on, and he laughed and directed them to a rowboat tied to a house-stilt. After he pulled it in, they clambered aboard, and the man half-undid the knot.

  “No,” YuFang said, “we’ll stay anchored and meditate like this. If anyone sees us, please tell them not to disturb us.”

  Once the man left, Yasmin said, “You go first. I can tell you’re desperate to find out who that Svad woman is.”

  YuFang’s senses heightened as he gazed across the slow-moving water, which rippled under thousands of raindrops. He’d never have imagined this would be the place on the river he’d follow Aedre’s instructions. Nothing was against them. He lay down and gazed at the thick grey clouds. “But you can’t be in the aurashield unless you come with me.”

  “Oh.” Yasmin grimaced. “I’m gonna get wet.”

  “Wanna join me?”

  “I need to keep watch.”

  “We should be safe tied to the house.”

  She tapped her foot. “But the man’s gone back to his food stall. He won’t see us if something happens.”

  “How about we go for a little while. See the woman. Then we could ask to borrow an umbrella.”

  “Just quickly, yeah?”

  “Okay.”

  She scooted next to him, and they held hands.

  “I’ll lead us,” he said. Then, he spoke in his mind.“I intend to go with Yasmin directly to see that Svad woman from my dreams. Just let us appear midair as houseflies. Don’t take us through space.”

  Unclear patterns in different shades of green filled his vision when he tried to focus on one thing, so he unfocused his gaze, and the whole scene came into view.

  Yasmin’s fly form hovered next to him. “Hi. Can you hear me if I talk in my mind?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good.”

  “Can you see straight yet?” he asked.

  “Sure can. Look through the trees. Is that the woman of your dreams?”

  “Yes.”

  Sunlight twinkled off her golden-orange skin and strawberry-blonde hair as she lumbered towards a grassy burial mound and sank to her knees.

  YuFang and Yasmin flew closer.

  The woman placed her forehead on the grass and wept. After some time, she sat up on her knees and rubbed her eyes. “I miss you so much. The kids miss you. Baba, Mama, won’t die happy, knowing you died before them. We’re all so broken.”

  YuFang tingled all over. It was his chance to appear and ask who he was. “I intend—”

  A Jerjen man stepped into the clearing.

  YuFang stiffened. He cocked his head to the side and then shook it. He couldn’t appear in front of this man.

  The man looked familiar. He lowered himself next to the woman and placed a gentle hand across her shoulder. She leaned into him.

  “We all miss YuFu,” the man said. “Life will never be the same without him.”

  YuFang’s breaths came coarse and fast. YuFu was the name the Jerjen Mama called out in the desert. If he was YuFu, this woman could be his wife. She was the woman on the cliff in his dream—the one who’d told him she was pregnant. He reminded himself to breathe slowly in the pattern he’d read about in Aedre’s list.

  The woman looked up at the man. “At least we have each other.” She kissed him on the lips, then they embraced.

  YuFang’s heart pounded, and his body quaked. He turned to Yasmin. “My wife’s kissing that guy. She thinks I’m dead.”

  The woman stood. “Come on Tao Tao, let’s go. MeiMei and LinLin will be waiting.”

  YuFang’s pulse speeded. “Tao Tao. The boy from the desert. My brother!”

  “Let’s go and come back later,” Yasmin said. “You can approach the woman another time.”

  “No. I wanna follow them now.”

  “It’ll be safer if we borrow an umbrella so that I can guard you.”

  “No. I wanna see Xuxu. I miss her so much. What’s she doing with my brother, of all people? Do my kids call him Baba?” YuFang curled his hands into fists. The idea of his beloved laying with his brother made him sick to his core. “He’ll be sorry for taking my wife. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Chapter 16*Aedre

  Distant screams rang out as the rain lashed down, and waves poured into the house below. The aurashield didn’t hold back the stink of sulphur, and it filled up with volcanic ash once more. Akachi cleared the aurashield so they could breathe, then ripped off his shirt. Fresh blood gleamed from a gash beneath his heart. He tore strips from the shirt and fastened them around his chest.

  “Are you going to die?” Aedre asked.

  The ground shook, and he gripped the edge of the wet roof, tightening his arm around her. “Hope I won’t die anytime soon. Got a mission to complete. Where’s the key?”

  “Underwater, a couple of blocks away. But there’s no way to get there. I’m paralysed, and you’re dying.”

  “I’m not dying! Can we do your magic travel from here?”

  She held her breath. “Can try.”

  “Who should make the commands?”


  “What do you mean?”

  “The intentions for getting to different places and for changing into different forms?”

  “Are you familiar with Mayleedian spyware?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You make the intentions.”

  “Where’s the key?”

  “Inside the statue of the Bee Goddess above Wayang and Komang’s central garden altar.”

  The hair prickled up the nape of her neck, and her breaths burst in and out. Had Wayang and her family drowned? Or had they followed Gus to the pyramid?

  “Hope we don’t fall off this roof while our minds take us there.”

  “Can you tie us?”

  He laid her down, then holding her bamboo ties, he scuttled over the roof and returned. “I’ve secured the ropes to wooden beams.” He tugged. “Should be secure.” He tied himself to her, lay down, and held her hand.

  They appeared within a small submarine that beamed its headlights at the statue, surrounded by heaps of bricks.

  Aedre chewed on a knuckle. Was Wayang and her family under there?

  Akachi controlled the sub’s robotic hands to pick up the stone bee. All attempts to smash it remained futile as time ticked away. He conjured up a giant submarine, and a robotic clamp squeezed at the statue until it cracked, then it pulled the rock apart. A crystal star the size of Aedre’s palm fell to the bottom, then appeared in Akachi’s hand.

  The underwater surroundings changed to the concrete verandah of the house on which their bodies rested.

  “Wait here.” He climbed through the hatch, then returned empty-handed and clasped his arms around her.

  They awoke on the roof, the amethyst tied within the bottom of her dress.

  Her neck tensed with readiness, then her head flopped back onto the roof. If only she could walk.

  “How're we gonna get to the pyramid?” he asked.

  “You can swim for it.”

  “I’m not leaving you. Look! The water levels have gone down.”

  He secured her to his back, climbed off the roof, and waded through the chest-high water. The road towards the pyramid travelled upwards, and he struggled until they reached dry ground. Then, he whipped a device from his pocket, and it transformed into a hoverboard.

  Aedre jerked her head back and gawped. She hadn’t seen one since being in Nerthus.

  He pressed a button, and a seat arose from the back. With her seated and tied to his back, he clutched the handlebars and floated up the winding road into the hills. They passed crumbled houses and a few scattered corpses along the way.

  “Looks like there’s been an earthquake here,” he said.

  They hovered past the destruction in silence until they reached the amethyst pyramid. Even in the rain, ash and devastation, the pyramid’s beauty gleamed in the night.

  Crowds of people coughed and held pieces of cloth over their mouths and noses. Children cried and clung to their mothers’ legs or were cradled in their arms. Men carried injured children or elderly parents. People screamed and wailed around those who’d already died.

  The crowd parted to let Aedre and Akachi through, and Gus greeted them with his mother at the entrance to the pyramid. “Where’s my ba?”

  “Dead,” Akachi said.

  Gus’s mother screamed and fell to her knees. “Somare! No!”

  Aedre bit her lip. It wasn’t technically correct but might move the process along faster.

  “You’re bleeding,” Gus said to her.

  “It’s his blood, not mine.”

  Gus took her off Akachi’s back as the ground shook again. He carried her into the pyramid’s hall, and towards its altar, then he lowered her to the floor.

  Akachi followed and pulled her onto his lap.

  A tingling sensation jolted through her as the task at hand became fuzzy in her mind. It felt good to have this kind of attention.

  Akachi showed her the key, glittering in his hand. “What do I do?”

  Roobish’s memories came flooding back. “Slot it into the gap. Make sure the silver-coated point faces up, then turn it twice to point at the hieroglyph for Kuanja.”

  He rubbed a finger around the eight symbols etched into the altar, one for each of the eight habitable planets and moons of Plan8. “You can read this ancient writing?”

  “No. Found out through trial and error.”

  He did what she said.

  “We want to appear from this same pyramid in the future, so only need to press the point once. If we pressed twice, we’d end up in Pengkarang, central Rajanakki.”

  “Why not go there?”

  “The villagers want to stay where their ancestors were buried.”

  He followed her instruction, and a dial with numbers appeared.

  Her heart raced.

  “When in the future?”

  “It can’t be in our lifetime, or we’ll lose our memories.”

  “Two hundred years, then.” He twisted the dial to +200, followed by three blanks.

  An indigo light shone from the altar and increased in brightness as it filled the pyramid’s interior. The masses waiting outside must have seen it because their shouts and chatter materialised all around.

  Akachi carried Aedre to a sidewall.

  “To take the key out, you’ll have to rub it’s centre, with your fingertip—four times clockwise, then anti-clockwise four times.” She glanced from Akachi to Gus. “Lead them into the light.”

  Gus and his mother ushered a torrent of a thousand people through the portal. They had to go slowly because each had to climb the altar’s amethyst block to enter the light. With no panic or stampede, the light must’ve somehow entranced them, though most faces remained sullen from the trauma of the catastrophe. Some went with their family members and belongings, and others went alone with their grief.

  Aedre laughed when just the final few waited in line.

  “Wait.” Akachi pointed to a couple of men still dressed in temple sarongs and turbans. He stood and gestured towards Aedre. “Will you carry the key bearer? She’s paralysed from below the neck.”

  “Of course. Is she the woman who brought the key?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll take good care of her.”

  “No! I’m not going! We’re finding a way out, aren’t we? You have a hoverboard, and there’ll be boats on the south coast going to Rajka.” The ground shook, and rocks from the mountains above bashed the outer walls of the pyramid.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said.

  “But I’ll be trapped in the future.” Her vision blurred with tears, and her voice broke. “I’m supposed to go back home to my dad. The government’s buying me a ticket to Nerthus.”

  “You can come back after the air’s cleared.”

  “Time will freeze here while I’m in the future.”

  “It’ll freeze for me?”

  “For everyone.”

  His eyes went round. “I’ll feel it? Being frozen?”

  “No. You’ll never know it happened. But your life won’t continue until I return or someone takes the key out of the altar.”

  “I’ll take the key out.”

  “But what about me? I’ll be trapped!”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “No. I’ll be lost in time.”

  “If you don’t go now, we’ll die.”

  “You have your special aurashield. You can save me and take me to southern Giok.”

  “My hoverboard won’t take our combined weight for more than an hour. I’ll die if I have to carry you anymore. I’m wounded, remember? You’ll live. The future will have better medicine so you might walk again. You go into that light; you have hope. You stay here; we both die.”

  Her head ached from all the tension. Would the future be safe? “Come with me,” she pleaded. “Let’s go together.”

  He picked her up and passed her to the strongest looking man. “I’ll make it on my own, but not if I carry you. I’m sorry.”

  She sniffed a
nd rubbed her teary face onto his chest. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Yes, you could have. I’ll contact your father, what’s his number?”

  “022LU6310.”

  He nodded.

  “You didn’t write it down.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A Mayleedian agent.”

  Chapter 17*Noomy Foster

  Noomy Foster sat with her daughter under an arch of roses in their greenhouse dome. Night birds hooted and sang their waking calls within the dome’s forest, and the fragrance of roses was as sweet as her mood. The waterfall thundering in the background washed all negativity away, and she inhaled a lungful of the beautiful air.

  Since Inga had returned, Noomy Foster felt weightless. The future no longer seemed bleak, especially as Delisa had said Inga could stay with her for the rest of her life. She didn’t need this Aedre-girl coming and ruining their peace. Glass City had its downfalls, but to live together was all that mattered now.

  Inga hadn’t been so happy. She wiped tears from her cheeks and leaned forward. “I can’t believe I’ve lost three years of my life and three sisters.”

  “Everyone in Glass City loses someone eventually. At least we have each other. I must be the luckiest noomy here. Three years won’t seem like much when you’re as old as me.”

  “You’re not old. Are Albina and Naomi okay?”

  “Roobish said they were.” She looked around the foliage and up at the glass dome’s ceiling. Was it all right for the two of them to discuss Roobish? Noomy Foster had promised to tell Delisa if Aedre or anyone else tried to contact her through mystical travel. Surveillance would prioritise watching their living quarters and their garden.

  Inga slumped back and leaned her head on Noomy Foster’s shoulder. “You’re still unsure about Yasmin, aren’t you?”

  “One thing I do know. Dead or alive—Yasmin’s no longer a slave.”

  “They’re watching our every move, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “If Aedre comes, you gonna tell Delisa?”

  She nodded. Of course, she’d choose a secure home with Inga over a stranger taking down Glass City. Nothing and no one would get between them this time.