The Quest to the Uncharted Lands Page 9

  And then she had no more time to think, for he’d drawn close enough for Stella to hear his harsh breathing. He held the metal rod parallel to his body, careful not to get its tip too near his face.

  Now or never, Stella told herself, working up her courage.

  Trembling, she reached down through the hole in the crow’s nest floor. Slowly. Slowly. It was vital that the man see no distortion in the air, have no inkling she was only inches away.

  Her hand passed beneath the crackling blue light, and through the suit, Stella felt the hairs on her arm stand up, as if drawn to the glow. A part of her feared it, and yet the scientist in her was fascinated, wondering how it worked and from where it drew its power. It was like a tiny, trapped lightning bolt.

  Then the saboteur was right in front of her. One more step up the ladder, and they would bump heads.

  Swallowing her fear, Stella grabbed the metal rod just below the glowing light. She’d intended to wrench it out of the man’s grip, hurl it down to the deck, then pull back into the crow’s nest before he could react or figure out what had happened.

  At least, that was the plan.

  Stella was still envisioning it in her head when the light at the tip of the rod flashed in a brilliant halo, blinding her. The man jerked and cried out, his hand slipping from the ladder rung. At the same instant, a shock wave went through Stella’s hand, traveling all the way up her arm. Pain followed the sensation, a sharp, trembling agony. She tried to pull her hand back, but it was as if her palm had been fused to the metal rod. Through her glove, her hand burned.

  She screamed.

  Below her, the man screamed too, fumbling on the ladder to secure his grip, but he was slipping, the wind tearing at him. Half blind, Stella fell forward onto her stomach, her upper body hanging down through the hole in the crow’s nest. She still couldn’t let go of the rod, and the man’s grip on it dragged her down. She blinked her vision clear in time to see him lose his footing on the ice-slick ladder. His bloodshot eyes widened, and his face…his face…

  Changed.

  There was a ripple, as if the man had been submerged in a pool of water. When it cleared, his flesh tightened, the age lines around his mouth disappearing. The sideburns on his face receded to his temples. Years peeled away from his face, until a much younger man with blond hair and a mustache stared back at Stella. Only his eyes were the same, still bloodshot and empty of every emotion except pain.

  Before Stella could react, the man’s hands slipped off the ladder, and he fell, plummeting toward the deck. He managed to keep hold of the metal rod, finally ripping it from her grasp.

  Freed, Stella wrenched herself up through the hole and collapsed on her back on the floor of the crow’s nest. She clutched her injured hand to her chest. It still throbbed painfully, but not nearly as bad as when she’d grabbed the rod.

  She stared up at the dark sky, the veil of the invisibility suit pressing against her face. Suddenly she felt as if she were suffocating. With her uninjured hand, she wrenched off the veil and hood, ignoring the cold shock of wind that hit her in the face. With the suit compromised, the rest of the invisibility effect faded, and her body shimmered into view. “Cyrus!” she yelled.

  “I’m here!”

  She heard his voice first, and then Cyrus’s face swam into view above hers. His eyes were back to their normal brown color and full of concern. “What happened?” he asked. “I saw a light flash, and then you screamed, but I couldn’t see you until now. Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” Gingerly, she detached the glove from the suit and pulled it off to look at her injured hand. A large, raw blister ran the length of her palm. “It was the traitor,” she said, her voice unsteady. “It came from his…weapon or something. It was a long metal rod with a blue light at the tip. He was coming up the ladder, so I reached down, and when I touched the rod…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered that burst of agony and the transformation that she never would have believed if she hadn’t witnessed it happening inches from her own face.

  Cyrus’s face paled, his whole body tense. “You say he had a rod with a blue light at the tip? And you touched it? Let me see!”

  “I’m fine now.” But Stella sat up, letting Cyrus help her lean back against the mast. She uncurled her fist and laid her open palm in her lap so he could look at the angry blister. “I have salves in my alchemy case that’ll take the pain away and help the wound heal,” she assured him.

  Biting his lip, Cyrus nodded. “Good, then it’s not as bad as I thought. Those weapons…well, they affect people differently.”

  “You’ve seen one before?” Stella demanded.

  Cyrus nodded grimly. “In my part of the world,” he said.

  So she’d been right. The saboteur was from the uncharted lands.

  “He fell off the ladder and onto the deck, but right before he did, his face changed,” Stella said. She described the shocking alteration before realizing. “Is he still down there?”

  “I’ll look. Stay here,” Cyrus said, squeezing her shoulder gently. “Don’t move.”

  He stood up, grabbing the crow’s nest railing for balance, and looked down at the deck, shielding his eyes against the swirling ice. A moment later, he returned to kneel beside her. “I don’t see him anywhere down there,” he said. “The fall was sure to hurt him. You probably scared him off—and saved my life.”

  If he’d felt anywhere near the pain Stella had, she wasn’t surprised that the man had retreated. “He was coming after you,” she said. “Who is he? What is he?”

  Worry and sorrow pinched Cyrus’s face. “He’s from the uncharted lands, like me,” he confirmed, his voice barely audible above the wind. “He and others like him were on the expedition I came over on. They’re called the Faceless. They have the power to change their appearances. It helps them blend in.”

  “He’s not trying to blend in!” Stella shouted, fear rising in her. “He’s trying to crash the ship! Why?” She grabbed Cyrus’s arm with her good hand, squeezing hard until he winced. “He wants to kill everyone on board, including himself. That’s insane! Who does that?”

  “I don’t know why he’s doing this!” Cyrus said, his voice and temper rising to match hers. “Our expeditions were just supposed to observe you, not to interact with you and certainly not to hurt you! We wanted to see what your people were like, learn about your culture and society before we made contact for the first time. We were just being cautious, I swear.” He held up his hand to stop any further arguments. “Look, we won’t find any answers up here in this storm! I’m exhausted, and we need to get you back to the cargo bay and treat that wound.”

  Stella opened her mouth to protest, but he was right. The blister on her hand was starting to throb. At that moment, the safety of their warm, dark corner of the cargo bay sounded like bliss. “What about the ship?” she asked. “Did you finish the protection net?”

  Cyrus nodded. “Another half hour or so and we should be clear of the storm,” he said. “We’re going to make it through. Now let’s get off this crow’s nest before someone decides to come up onto the deck to check the skies.”

  And in case the Faceless man came back. He didn’t say it, but Stella knew Cyrus was as worried and scared as she was. She could see it in the shadows under his eyes.

  He helped her stand, and Stella followed him to the crow’s nest ladder. She didn’t know what made her look toward the horizon at that moment, but she was just in time to see a wall of darkness bearing down on their port side. Another storm cloud, the largest she’d yet seen. She opened her mouth to call out to Cyrus, when suddenly, the wind gusted violently, and Stella felt the world falling out from under her.

  The Iron Glory moaned and listed starboard. Stella screamed as the crow’s nest tilted sharply sideways. She slipped on the ice-slicked floor and fell, her ribs hitting the railing. She twisted and wrapped her arms around it to keep herself from tumbling off the ship and hurtling thousands of feet to the frozen ground.<
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  Beside her, Cyrus was in worse shape. The crow’s nest had turned almost horizontal. He skidded and scrambled to find a handhold against the sloping floor, but there was nothing to grab. All at once, golden light shot from his hands, as if he was trying to use his power to stop himself from falling. It didn’t work. The light illuminated his body as he slid through the opening beneath the crow’s nest railing. It was all happening too fast. He was going to fall.

  At the last second, Stella reached out her injured hand and grabbed him by the forearm. Pain shot up her arm as his weight yanked her against the railing, but she had a secure grip on it with her other hand. Cyrus’s legs dangled in the empty air above a terrible abyss. He stared up at her, eyes wide and terrified.

  “It’s all right,” Stella gasped. “I’ve got you.”

  Only then did she remember the golden light that bled from Cyrus’s hands. It had snaked its way up his forearm and now enveloped her hand as well.

  His warning rang in her head like an alarm bell.

  Don’t. Touch. Me.

  But I can’t let him go, she thought. He’ll die.

  The world shimmered around her.

  And then went black.

  Where am I?

  Darkness enveloped Stella, and panic wasn’t far behind. What was happening? Had she and Cyrus fallen to their deaths from the crow’s nest? She didn’t want to believe it, but at that moment, it seemed the only explanation for the nothingness she was experiencing.

  Stella felt no pain, no searing chill from the storm. The terrible roar of the wind was gone, leaving behind an eerie silence. She drifted in it like a boat with no anchor.

  Then, out of nowhere, a faint golden light appeared in front of her, and a stinging sensation in her hand pierced the nothingness. Looking down, Stella saw her hand gripping Cyrus’s forearm, just as she had done a moment ago when they dangled from the crow’s nest. Strangely, the darkness obscured the rest of Cyrus’s body, and the link between them—hand to arm, with no clothing covering them—was all that Stella could see.

  Oh, please, please don’t let us be dead, she thought. Her mother and father…when they found out, it would destroy them. She could picture the two of them, their shock and bewilderment when the captain came to the medical bay to give them the news.

  Not Stella. Not our daughter. How could she be dead? She’s not even here. She’s at home, safe with her grandparents, where we trusted her to stay.

  No, it was worse than that, Stella thought. If she and Cyrus had really fallen from the ship, no one would ever know what had happened to them. They’d just be…gone.

  Misery clutched her heart. Trying to push it away, Stella focused all her attention on her hand joined to Cyrus’s, their connection bathed in that strange golden light radiating from his skin.

  Staring at his forearm, Stella realized abruptly that something was different. The gold light—somehow it had turned Cyrus’s skin translucent. It was as if his arm were made of glass and she could see inside it, but what she saw made no sense at all.

  Because what she saw was a collection of mechanical parts.

  Gears, cogs, bolts, and metal plates took up the space where there should have been bones and muscle. Woven in and out of that strange menagerie were streams of golden light that reminded Stella of arteries and veins from the pictures she’d studied in her parents’ medical books.

  Disturbed by the sight, Stella tried to pull away, but she couldn’t make her hand move. She and Cyrus might as well have been fused skin to skin. Panic made the blood pound in her ears, and it took her a moment to realize that through her shock, a voice echoed in her head. She didn’t know where it came from or whose it was, but it repeated a single word. A word she’d never heard before, but somehow, she understood it was a word for what she was seeing beneath Cyrus’s skin.

  A name for what he truly was.

  Olaran.

  “Olaran,” she whispered. When she said it, the vision before her flickered and faded, and Cyrus’s arm returned to normal. Now she only saw a boy’s forearm—smooth skin, tiny hairs, and freckles.

  To look at it, she’d never know that, beneath the surface, Cyrus wasn’t human at all.

  He was a machine.

  Olaran.

  This isn’t happening, Stella thought. It has to be a dream. Her stomach churned and heaved. She thought she might vomit. The darkness pressed in on her from all sides, trapping and suffocating….

  Stop! Make it stop!

  As if the universe answered her cry, suddenly, the silence lifted, and the world came crashing in on Stella. She was back in the crow’s nest on the Iron Glory, half frozen from the ice storm, holding on to Cyrus as he dangled below her. The gold light coming from his body had faded, but other than that, it was as if no time had passed at all.

  But Stella’s chest burned. She was crushed against the metal railing, pulled down by Cyrus’s weight. How had she managed to keep hold of him during the vision? It didn’t matter. She didn’t think she had the strength to pull him up now.

  Luckily, something else was happening around them that Stella hadn’t noticed. The Iron Glory was fighting back against the storm. Its engines ground and groaned, and the smell of sulfur burned Stella’s nose as the ship slowly righted itself. The world tilted, the crow’s-nest floor coming back beneath her. Finally, she was able to shift her weight away from the railing, relieving the crushing pain.

  Below her, Cyrus hooked his legs onto the crow’s nest and pulled himself up and over the railing. He collapsed beside Stella. He’d lost his hat somehow, or the wind had blown it off. Ice crystals clung like beads in his dark hair.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, looking over at Stella, his face colorless.

  All right? When she’d just discovered there were people in the world who could change their faces and machines that could wear a human face? No, she wasn’t all right, not by a long shot, but she nodded and pointed to the ladder. “Let’s get off this thing,” she said weakly.

  He nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Stella followed him as he crawled to the top of the ladder and began slowly climbing down from the crow’s nest. Her body was present, the cold kiss of the wind stiffening her limbs, but in her mind, she was still seeing the vision of Cyrus’s forearm, the machine parts, and the golden light.

  She tried to analyze the science of it—if science was even involved. Touching him, touching that light, must have created some kind of connection between them that triggered the vision, allowed her to see what he truly was. That was why he’d insisted that she stay away. Did he know what she’d seen? Did he know that his secret had been exposed?

  They made it down the ladder, and Stella almost wept in relief when her feet were back on solid ground. At least until she slid on the icy deck. But Cyrus was right behind her, grabbing her shoulder to keep her from falling.

  Stella imagined five metal fingers digging into her skin. She yanked free of his grasp. “I’m fine!” she snapped.

  “I was just trying to help.” Cyrus came around to stand in front of her, confusion swimming in his brown eyes. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  So he didn’t realize what had happened.

  Stella gritted her teeth in anger. The boy full of secrets. The boy who wouldn’t tell his real name. What else was he hiding from her?

  “Not a ghost,” she said, and gave voice to the word that wouldn’t stop churning in her thoughts. “An olaran.”

  Cyrus’s eyes rounded, his breath fogging the air. “I see,” he said after a minute. His voice was strained. “That’s right. You touched me. I was so scared up there that I forgot.”

  “I’m such an idiot,” Stella said, backing away from him. She held her hands out from her sides to keep her balance on the ice. The blister on her palm throbbed, a spot of painful heat in an icy wilderness. “All this time, I’ve been trying to guess your name—Connor, Olwin, Pierce, David—on and on like a game, and that was the last se
cret I should have been worrying about.”

  “I’m sorry, Stella,” Cyrus said as the wind surged and howled around them. “I should have told you before, but I didn’t think you’d believe me, and I didn’t want to upset you any more than I already had.”

  Stella thought about that. She hated to admit it, but he had a point. She probably wouldn’t have believed him if she hadn’t seen what he was—what the Faceless man was—with her own eyes. What sane person would, in her place? She and her parents had often wondered about what the people in the uncharted lands would look like, how they would live, but in all her imaginings, she’d always believed the people of the uncharted lands would be, well, alive.

  “Well, we’re talking now—human to machine—so tell me what else you’ve been hiding!” Stella said. “Were you lying earlier? Do you actually know why the Faceless man is trying to kill us?”

  Cyrus took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. She met his eyes, and then she wished she hadn’t, for she wouldn’t have seen the hurt shining there.

  “I haven’t lied to you about what I’m doing here,” he said. “I stowed away because I got stranded in your part of the world, and I needed a way home. I don’t know why the Faceless man wants to crash the ship, but if he does, it’ll kill me too, and that’s the last thing I want.” He reached out a hand to her, a pleading look in his eyes. “Stella, the olarans—we’re not machines, not the way you think of them. Our bodies are a combination of human and mechanical parts, but we’re born; we have feelings, hopes, fears, dreams; and we can die, just like humans, sarnuns, and chamelins do.”

  “But how…how is that possible?” Stella asked.

  He shrugged. “How do the sarnuns communicate mind to mind? How do the chamelins change their shape? Think about it. In their own way, they’re just as different from humans as the olarans are.”

  But Stella shook her head. “It’s not the same,” she said. “You have machine parts under your skin. The same parts that make clocks tick and engines run, but that doesn’t mean they’re alive. You just…Machines are not people.”