Dust

8 poison angels

No matter how she tried to pull them under the covers, Rien's feet stayed cold. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged her face down tight, except then it was strange that her back was so uncomfortably warm. And she couldn't breathe. The air was still and stale and tasted of sweat. Perhaps her coffin was malfunctioning. She opened her eyes, expecting energy-saving darkness, and reached out left-handed to grope for the timer switch.

Her fingertips brushed the cool nanomesh of Perceval's parasite wing, and she jerked it back with a gasp, sucking her fingertips as if she'd burned them. "Perceval?"

Yes. Once she was awake, even half awake, she was unlikely to forget again where she was. Her pulse hammered in her throat, a panicky adrenaline reaction, but as soon as she identified it her new internal senses—her colony, her symbiont—adjusted the level of worry to something more sensible and appropriate.

"Oh, space," she said, and pushed at Perceval's arms. She had to get out. It wasn't her. There was an alien holding her, but worse, there was an alien in her, and it was making decisions for her. Don't be scared, her symbiont whispered.

Which, predictably, scared her even more.

Perceval's skin felt wrong. Fragile, papery. Hot. Rien thought if she pulled at it, it would slip and tear like the friable skin over a blister. Perceval moaned. Her breath smelled cloying.

She was sick, and Rien didn't know what to do. She struggled free. Perceval's parasite wings held her in place in the corridor, but Rien kicked too hard and went tumbling. She smacked one wall, smearing fluorescent fungus across the plating, her left arm first numbed from wrist to shoulder and then searingly alive. Tears stung, swelled in the corners of watering eyes, broke from acceleration and spread. But she got her right arm and her legs out, spread them wide—though it was counterintuitive—and slowed her rate of spin.

Rien was half competent in microgravity. But this was different. She was better, faster, seeing trajectories and velocities with her inner eye as if they were projected on a screen. And something was building in her awareness: a model or structure, a schematic of surrounding corridors that stretched beyond what she could immediately perceive. Echoes, she thought. Like a bat.

She bounced off another wall, redirected to the far end of the corridor, and managed to hit with bent knees and take the edge off her velocity. And then she was coming back up the hall at Perceval, but slower now and in a more controlled fashion.

And Perceval was braced.

Rien struck Perceval's pinions with both palms. The left arm buckled, but that didn't matter; it had helped absorb some of the energy. The pinions were not hard, not like hitting the decking, and Rien managed to catch hold of an edge and hold on. "Space and ashes," Rien said.

Perceval hung in midcorridor, suspended between extended pinions, her body curled into a fetal huddle and folded inside another pair of wings as if in a translucent clamshell. They looked like smoke, but when Rien braced herself against the extended wing and reached out to touch her sister, the surface was smooth and quite cool.

Even through the cocooning colony, Rien could see Perceval's face shining with sweat, though, and the inflamed red streaks like spiderwebs surrounding the attachment points of her pinions. She tugged, but she had nothing to leverage against except Perceval's other wings—of which there were currently in total six, the four spanning the corridor and the two within which she slept—and it was useless.

"Oh, please," Rien said. "I have to get her someplace with water and food."

The pinion shifted, relaxing under Rien's hand. Abruptly, she realized how cold she was, the sweat of too-warm sleeping chilling on her skin, the ends of damp hair freezing. Perceval's pinions might have trapped the warmth when Rien was inside them, but they were themselves as cold as the corridor's frigid air. And Rien was wearing nothing but the sweeping knit trousers, cardigan, and strap-shoulder top.

"Please," she said again, fearful she had imagined the response. "Perceval, you have the map. I need you. Open your damned pinions."

When the shell cracked open, the warm air within escaped in a scroll of mist and flaking frost. Perceval floated limp as the third pair of pinions silently merged into the mass of the parasite wings. Rien stretched out from where she clung and touched Perceval's cheek.

Hot and moist, and Rien's fingers smelled of sickness when she pulled them back.

"Perceval." Her own pleading voice might have belonged to another. "That's good, sweetheart. Now open your eyes."

It was what Head might have said. What Head had said, when Rien was little and she was sick. And whether it was Rien's tone of abject fear, or some virtue in the words, when Rien touched Perceval's face again, she turned her cheek into it.

Slowly, the pinions relaxed further, and with unhurried motions unlike last night's frantic scuttling, began to bear Perceval and Rien forward. The feathertips—well, what would have been the feathertips, if the pinions had real feathers—bent against the corridor bulkheads, and they glided along as if borne by a giant, mechanical, four-legged spider.

Rien released her grip on the leading edge of the wing and instead caught Perceval's shoulder, floating beside her, huddled close to share warmth. It was easy in the microgravity.

The parasite wings paced along the corridor for some fifteen minutes, during which Rien's dark-adapted eyes saw nothing but Perceval and deck plates and the teal and lime bioluminescence of various kinds of fungus. And a school of ship-fish, a half-dozen of the oxygen-breathing scavengers floating midair, glass-transparent except for eyes and guts and teeth and streaks of blue and vermilion neon. They hung momentarily in a cloud, and then were gone in a flicker of winfings.

Rien, light-headed from cold and poor oxygen saturation, wondered if they had come through whatever j crevice the atmosphere and spores had entered through. She would not like to be the sparrow hawk whose dinner depended on catching one.

Eventually, the pinions paused before a hatchway like a dozen others they had passed. The burning pain in Rien's left arm had dulled to the sharp occasional twinges of a bone bruise, but without releasing Perceval's shoulders, Rien was able to grab and shake her face. "Here?"

Perceval's eyes were crusted yellow along the lashes. She shivered, and Rien's clothes were wet with Perceval's musty sweat. Whatever the infection, her symbiont was having a fight.

"Open it," she said, her voice cracked and sticky. "We might be safe in here."

Rien tried the palm panel, but the hatch—like the previous ones—was dead. Instead, she undogged it manually, made sure Perceval's pinions would hold her in place, and—with one hand holding her sister's—pulled the hatch open.

At least she knew it wasn't the Enemy on the other side. Overpressure pushed the door into her hand. Her ears popped painfully, and Rien made a small sharp noise.

The atmosphere that rushed out to surround them was warm and moist, scented pleasantly of chlorophyll and richly composted loam. Birds sang; the interior of the hatch cover trailed vines heavy with unripe slipskin grapes, and a drone of insects broke what Rien now realized was the humming, mechanical unsilence of the cold corridor. There was gravity beyond the door, and she swung forward half deftly to get her feet into it and feel the strength.

The ship-fish had not come from here.

Rien swung again, using Perceval's pinions like monkey bars. She generated enough momentum to carry her over the threshold and landed barefoot on mossy soil that squished water over her toes.

She pulled her injured arm against her chest, hugging it for comfort, and stepped forward. "Perceval," she said. "You found it."

There was no sound behind her. She turned; Perceval still floated amid the charcoal sketch of her parasite wings. Her eyes were only glassy slits behind her lashes.

"Pinion," Rien said, feeling foolish, "please follow."

They moved forward, smooth and graceful, with the speed and assurance of a giant spider. The trailing wing brushed the vine-hung hatch closed again, and Rien heard the thump of bolts as it sealed.

Then she also heard a flurry of wings, not Perceval's, but smaller and soft-feathered. Something white as star-shine and bigger than a rooster descended before her, fluttering hard.

The wings were so pale the blood tinted the light shining through them blue, the span a little more than the length of one of Rien's legs. The animal had fishhook talons like a hawk, a long neck leading to a cockatoo-crested head with a heavy, curved, lacquer-black beak. But the eyes were tight-shut, eyelids like the crumpled crepe of an old man's throat, and the tail that coiled around the branch it landed on lashed, scaled and patterned silver-on-blue-white.

"I am Gavin," said the basilisk. "Welcome to this Heaven, daughters of Benedick."

Rien did not know what Perceval would have done, but she could imagine it.

She stepped between the basilisk and her sister. The branch still swayed under its sudden weight, its wings fanning lightly for balance. Rien had seen a mountebank's parrot on a swing, and she thought of that now.

She didn't know what she'd do when it lunged. Its toes and talons measured together were as long as her pinky finger; its beak looked strong enough to snip that finger off. When it turned its head side to side, she was certain it was measuring the distance between them, and no matter that its eyes were closed. She crouched under its gaze, extended her right arm—the left still stung numb—and groped in wet earth and leaf litter for a stone, a branch ... anything.

"I greet you politely," the basilisk said. "And you fumble for a rock. Is this how you meet a stranger on the road in Rule? I would worry about your courtesy to guests."

The oddest thing was its beak, moving like a hand puppet's mouth. Exactly as if a beak and a thick black tongue could form the sounds of human speech—

Rien remembered the parrot, and shut her gaping jaw. She didn't straighten, though, or drop a knee. Fair words or not, after the past few hours she was not eager to trust a stranger. "I beg your pardon," she said. And pointed back, with her elbow like a bird's bent wing, at Perceval. "This is how we treat guests in Rule. I would not recommend you go there."

"Indeed. I am your guide to this Heaven, though, and if you come with me I will see what we can do to aid you."

"And if I don't come with you?"

The basilisk flipped its wings closed, flight feathers crossing over its back. The sequiny scales on the tail, she saw, made a reticulated pattern in unpigmented white and silver, the bluer, grayer scales showing the color of the blood beneath.

"Your sister is sick," it said. "If you do not come with me, what will you do?"

It waited a moment, as if it actually expected her to answer. And when she didn't, its tail uncoiled from the branch with all the sleekness of a heavy-bodied snake, the undersurface hollowing, pulling broad scales into an arch. It launched itself into the air, circled—over Rien's head, but not passing over Perceval—and reversed direction.

It beat away on heavy wings, ten meters along a bare root-raddled trail and then a pause, ten more and then another. Rien watched it.

It never glanced back.

Rien stood. She reached back among the parasite wings and took Perceval's limp hand, and stepped forward. The construct shivered, and seemed as if it would edge back. It leaned away from the basilisk like a cringing dog, she thought, hoping not to be noticed.

She said, "Stop it. Hurry up. Come on." And the parasite wings—more spider legs now—reluctantly stepped with her, as if Perceval were a leash and she led them at heel.

Another step, and another. And then, if she wanted to keep the basilisk in sight, she was committed. If you're walking, you might as well walk, she thought, and strode out as if she meant to get somewhere.

Under trees and beside the vine-hung wall, following the blind monster. The pinions—Pinion, Rien told herself firmly; giving it a name of its own could only help to separate it from Perceval, and Rien wanted to keep them separate in her head—minced along, the girl dangling beneath them like an overripe fruit from the tree. In gravity, Perceval no longer floated in a loose fetal position. Now her arms and legs dangled, her head bouncing on her neck no matter how smoothly Pinion moved.

The earth was level once Rien was on the trail, packed and warm, the bark worn from the roots by many soles. Still, bare feet were not the best for this, and the second or third time she stubbed her toe, she whimpered.

And then bit her lip, as the basilisk turned back to her.

Perhaps the stop had roused her slightly, but Perceval made a mewing sound and pushed petulantly at Rien's hand.

"She's so sick," Rien said, as the basilisk stared with tight-shut eyes.

It nodded. "Then please hurry." And set off again, twice as fast this time.

Perceval still hurt: a different kind of hurting now. It was not the pain of ongoing injury, but the ache of abused muscles at rest, a reminder of recent damage rather than the thing itself. And she was warm in the mantle of her wings, and lying peacefully in shade.

Vaguely, she remembered a march, dizziness and nausea and shaking chill. But not now; now there was a soft pallet and green leaves and the clean scent of air in a planted habitat.

Rien must have brought them somewhere safe. The pain was almost pleasant, when Perceval thought of it that way.

She rolled onto her back, and recalled doing so that the wings wrapping her weren't her wings. Her belly clenched. She wondered if it would ever stop hurting like that, every time she remembered.

But she was dressed now, loose trousers and a long-sleeved halter top that tied at the waist and kept her blessedly warm for the first time in ... the first time since she had been captured. She was in a clearing, on a pallet on soft moss, and woven sunshades were suspended above her from cords strung to tree limbs. Chips of light fell through them. A cicada droned. Underneath it, Perceval heard faint strains of music, flute and guitar.

And Rien was nowhere in sight.

Heart pounding, Perceval sat up. And almost vomited, a thin flavor of bile filling her foul-tasting mouth. Her eyes were crusted and gummy, her teeth disgusting. She couldn't imagine what might keep her symbiont colony so busy as to neglect hygiene. Her skin was clean, though, and she smelled soap; someone had bathed her. And there was water beside her, a pitcher on a low tray, room temperature but—by the smell—laced with crushed mint leaves.

She dabbed her fingers in the water and scrubbed her eyes, her face, the crusted lips. She picked out the mint leaves and chewed them, and then, crosslegged and hunched between the straggle of her parasite wings, she cradled the pitcher on her shins and bent forward to drink from the edge until she'd gotten enough out of it to lift the entire thing and drink. It was heavy, the metal surface dewed with condensation.

The water inside didn't taste of aluminum, though; the pitcher was lined in glass. It all went into her* except rivulets that ran down her chin on each side and spattered her shirt.

She could have drunk more.

Feeling better, Perceval set the pitcher down. She gathered herself and stood, feeling attenuated and rickety. When she wobbled, the wings fanned and caught her.

Strange, to realize that they did so and caused no pain. Perceval reached over her shoulder and felt the root of the stump, where her own warm wings had grown. They seamed imperceptibly into her flesh, flexible at the point of contact, only growing cool and hard by stages as she ran her fingers as high along the leading edge as she could reach.

Wounds dealt by an unblade were not amenable to regeneration, and they were not supposed to take a prosthesis. They healed only with difficulty, and often bled like stigmata intermittently for years. Sometimes, a deeper amputation would provoke better healing. Sometimes.

The unblade's program was designed to disrupt symbionts. They were colonies themselves, and from what Perceval had heard, ones with dark and aggressive personalities. She was lucky the wound hadn't become toxic.

The thought triggered a contrary memory. Poison had gotten into the wound, hadn't it? She'd been fevered. There had been a gunfight. She couldn't actually recall.

That would explain why she felt so achy and sluggish, like a Mean the morning after a beating, and why her symbiont had failed her.

Trailing her inexplicable wings behind her, either still thirsty or thirsty again, she went in search of the musicians. She would panic later. She would remain calm, now.

The trees bore bud, flower, and fruit on the same branches. She recognized peach, olive, almond, the tallest more than twice her height. The trunks were thicker than those at home. Gravity here was heavier, and as she craned her head back to stare up through the leaves at the crystal panels far above that let the suns shine in, she wondered if she would be able to fly here, even with mechanical wings. The holde would be big enough.

The sound of the flute carried better, but it also echoed more. The guitar told her where its player sat. Perceval followed the music until she saw a camp identical to the one she'd left, only occupied by two figures.

No, she realized. Two humanoid figures, and a big white bird.

One of the humans, cross-legged on a pallet like the one Perceval had left, was Rien. She held a guitar in her arms, her fingers sliding up and down the neck half awkwardly. She lifted her head as Perceval's motion caught her peripheral vision, and flubbed a chord.

Beside her sat the person with the flute. Perceval had a confused image of mahogany hair, as curly as Rien's but softer, all twisted in ringlets instead of wooly and wiry with frizz, of slender arms and narrow shoulders. And then the flautist stood, turning to her, and she saw bare feet and bony ankles, an ankle sheath on the left. The face was a woman's—angelic and sweet and rounded—with great dark eyes that looked kohled. But though small breasts stood from a boy's shirtless chest, tight trousers left Perceval in no doubt as to the masculine arrangement of the more intimate anatomy.

She tried not to stare.

The flautist balanced on each foot in turn, slipping on soft boots. Rien was not rising. She did let the guitar fall silent, though, as the stranger said, "Perceval, this is Mallory, who helped us. Mallory, this is—"

—my sister, Perceval coached, inside her head, but she could not force the sense of the words into Rien's head or the shape of them into her mouth.

"Sir Perceval Foucaulte Conn," Perceval said. "Of Engine. I am trying to reach my father, with urgent tidings."

Rien gave her a look, and from it Perceval gathered that Rien had not, perhaps, told this person everything.

Or even much of anything. Perceval bit her lip; of course, they were fugitives, and anyone could be in the pay of Rule.

She thrust out her hand, and waited for the mahogany-haired flautist to take it. But before that could happen, a voice spoke from the stump on the other side of the clearing.

"A pleasure to meet you in better circumstances," the white bird said, and when Perceval glanced up she saw that it was not a bird at all, but a basilisk.

It was worrisome, to find herself missing details. "Oh," she said. And then she sat down hard on the moss as her knees failed her.

Rien did jump to her feet then, almost tripping over the guitar. And sat back down hard herself. Mallory crouched, sliding the flute into a boot, and laid hands on her face. "You're both sick, children. And exhausted. Stay where you are."

Even the voice was androgynous, not for neutrality, but for flexibility. One moment, Perceval imagined it echoed a man's deep sonorous tones of authority, then a woman's chiding.

She did as she was told and sat.

A little later, as their host fussed with a self-heating kettle and water and pills and packets of herbs, she gathered her energy enough to take an interest. Deft hands sorted and sifted and poured. Perceval was fascinated.

"Are you a healer, Mallory?"

"No," Mallory said, and lifted a pair of cups. "I am a necromancer. Here, drink up."