Chapter Thirty-One
“THERE HAVE BEEN SOME ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORING THE ORIGIN POINTS OF OUR BLESSED AQUEDUCTS, GIVEN THAT HUMANS OFTEN HAVE AN ILL-ADVISED AND DANGEROUS SENSE OF CURIOSITY. BUT THE MYSTERIES OF THE HERALDS’ GREAT DESIGN HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO PENETRATE.
EXPLORERS OFTEN FIND THEMSELVES GOING IN CIRCLES OR INEXPLICABLY LOST IN THE COPPER PLAINS. ”
—TRINITY: A TOPOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW, PROFESSOR BEATRICE BARTLEWICK
The carriage is hidden in a ramshackle storage shed on the outskirts of Concord and is so old that I don’t know that I’d even recognize what it was if the Bookers hadn’t already told me.
It looks a bit like a low wagon with three pairs of wide-set wheels at the front, middle, and back, and a strong, crisscrossing cage of bars arching up over the cart itself.
At the front, six automaton mounts stand, quiet and dark, their plating covering the naphtha hearts sitting in the chest of each one.
They’re a bit rusty, but still elegant-looking, with long legs and faces, small pricked-up ears, and a strip of metal along their arching necks molded to look like hair streaming backward.
“We couldn’t find anything down here in the dust that would protect the wheels,” Garian explains as I sling my rucksack onto the carriage floor.
He moves around, checking and double-checking all the mechanisms involved in making this thing move.
“Nothing we could afford, anyway. But Orion here”—Orion shoots me a wink as he clambers by me into the carriage interior—“found a skyliner material that we could get our hands on.”
“Legally, of course,” Orion says in a tone as dry as the Copper Plains.
Garian straightens and reaches out to take Liren by the shoulders, the hint of tears shining in his eyes. “This feels a lot more dangerous than sending you off to pester preachers and wardens.”
Liren pecks him on the cheek and then turns to hug Mira. Mira holds her child much tighter and longer this time.
“It’ll be okay,” Liren says as they step back. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
Mira levels a fierce look at me. “You keep them all safe, understand?”
I couldn’t even keep Halle safe, I think, but I just nod and turn away.
“Is this going to carry all of us okay?” Dani eyes the carriage with blatant doubt as she gives Kelda a boost inside, then tosses in their rucksacks and water rations. “Six people and our gear and—”
“Carriages were designed to actually carry around ten people at a time,” Orion says, reaching out a hand to help Kelda balance as she plops down into a seat and settles fuzzy Ember in her lap.
She hasn’t let go of the little thing for an instant since it woke up, hand-feeding it bits of her own food and water rations.
“It was supposed to be a whole new commerce area—run a carriage, charge people to ride, the usual.”
Dani humphs, still not convinced, but she finally sighs and crawls in after me. “Fine. But it looks like a tragic accident in the making.”
“Don’t worry.” Atlas places his hand against an emerald-green crystalline pad and the automaton mounts spring to life, the naphtha hearts and veins inside them igniting with blue-white light that glows through their eye sockets and the gaps in their plating.
He shifts the levers lined up in front of him and we start to roll forward.
“We’ve tested this out several times, and it worked perfectly at least once. ”
Dani can barely get out a shout of protest before the carriage picks up speed and takes off, rumbling roughshod over the lightningrail bridge and then shooting north off across the Copper Plains.
For the first hour or so of the ride, I sit stiff and upright in my low seat, not quite comfortable with the feeling of the carriage.
It’s so different from a train car, which shifts and clacks in a familiar rhythm, but it’s not quite smooth like an airship, either, because you still get the tangible sensation of the ground beneath you.
I’m not sure I like it, if I’m being honest, but at least I’m able to settle into it after a while, leaning back and letting my muscles unclench.
I’m seated at the back, with Orion on my right and Dani next to him.
Kelda sits up front, sandwiched between Atlas and Liren, who are trading off driving and navigating.
The smothering heat of the day eases slightly as the hours pass and the sun starts to set.
At the front of the carriage, I watch as Atlas points at the sky, mutters something to Liren, and then twists one of the levers, adjusting our trajectory.
I lean over toward Orion so he can hear me over the wind without me raising my voice too much. “What are they doing?”
“Hmm? Oh.” He shifts in his seat, rubbing at his face like he might’ve been about to drift off to sleep.
“They’re using the stars to navigate, I think, to make sure we’re still headed in the right direction.
Pretty much the only way to know where you’re going out here since there are no streets or signposts or anything else like that. ”
I follow the angle of Atlas’s arm, trying to discern what he sees in the night sky. “How do they know what to look for?”
“That’s a very excellent question for someone who’s not me.” He folds his hands behind his head, cradling it as he tilts his chin up to the starscape. “I’m just a spectator when it comes to things like this.”
“As opposed to the things you’re an expert in, like thieving and pretty talk.”
“Did you just call me pretty?” I’m not even looking at him, but I can still hear the grin in his voice. “You can’t take that back, y’know.”
I roll my eyes so hard they hurt a little. Of course he took it like that. “I said you know how to talk pretty. That’s very different.”
He waves my excuse away, smiling so big his teeth shine in the darkness. “All I heard was the word pretty, so I’m going with that.”
By early the next morning, with the burning eye of the sun already bearing down on us, the appeal of the carriage has completely worn off.
The frame offers very little protection from the sunlight.
Liren hands each of us spectacles with dark, smoky quartz lenses to make the glare off the alloy more bearable, but they can’t help with the oppressive heat that leaves us sticky with sweat and cramped together.
The combination of the heavy warmth and the movement of the carriage gets to Kelda at one point, and she spends an hour with her head hanging over the side, throwing up.
I let her have two of my water rations after that, and then she curls up tight next to me, her head in my lap, Ember nestled against the crook of her neck.
I run my fingers through her hair until she’s deep asleep.
More than once, we have to stop so I can better hear Trinity’s song and adjust our course.
It’s still steadily pulling us north, but east a bit, too, almost like we’re headed for the very top of the world.
We have to take a wide berth around the city of Diligence, which even from a distance looks twice as big as Covenant.
Other little mirage towns crop up here and there, too, sometimes so masked by shimmering heat waves that you don’t know if they’re really there or not.
I check the skies a lot, watching for more Archangels coming toward us, but I see nothing.
Somehow, that doesn’t bring me any relief.
Nightfall makes the carriage slightly more bearable. Enough for most of us to fall asleep, at least, although Atlas and Liren take turns at the controls so we can keep moving.
It’s at dawn the next morning that Kelda taps my arm to get my attention. I look over at her, but she nods upward.
At the giant, dark, winged shapes flying high above us.
Three Archangels, circling slowly and lazily against the pastel early-morning sky. A hundred feet or more up, too far to reach even with phasing. Not attacking. Not coming down to get me. Just waiting.
Like they already know I’m coming to them.
Like they’re taunting me, knowing I won’t stop, even with their shadows haunting me, because this endless trail of stolen saints has to end and I’m going to be the one who ends it.
Kelda watches me, worry tight all over her face, but neither of us says anything out loud to the others.
I force a smile to try to show her I’m not bothered and put an arm around her shoulders, holding on to her until she finally relaxes.
When I look up again, the Archangels are gone.