90_Minutes_to_Live (21 page)

“We can’t. I . . .” her lips began to tremble. “What about Rags?”

“He’ll follow us, or he’ll fight his way out. Not even reavers want to mess with a cornered worlhound.”

Golden eyes fastened on the shaft behind, Rags growled as if in agreement.

“We don’t even know how far it goes,” she protested shrilly. “We’ll drown!”

“No we won’t.”

“I can’t swim, Colton!”

Stepping into the lukewarm pool, he offered her his hand. “I’ll help you.”

She backed away from him. “I can’t.”

“Lina!”

“I can’t!”

The screech of metal came again, louder than before.

Colton’s heart skipped a beat. The door wouldn’t hold much longer but clearly Lina wasn’t going to enter the raingrease of her own accord and forcing her in would only see them both drowned.

He ground his teeth in frustration. Why was she being so difficult? He wouldn’t even be in this mess if not for her. In fact, the longer he stuck with her, the more doom she brought down on him.

If she wanted to stay so badly, let her. He was not going to die for some homeless pup not even from his den.

“I’m sorry Colton,” Lina sobbed. “Please don’t go.”

Turning away, he waded deeper into the raingrease. But then he stopped as that frightened boy rose in his memory. His fingers tightened on his spear and he turned back to Lina.

No. Not again.

“Don’t worry Lina,” he said, climbing out of the pool. Never again. “I won’t.”

She stared down at her feet. “I thought....You’re not going to leave me?”

His hard expression softened. “You’re not the only one who lost their clan. My den was headed for the Wall too. The eruptions destroyed our water purifier and we were going to seek my old teacher, get Odin’s help in replacing it. Rags and I were scouting ahead when the reavers attacked. By the time I returned most were already dead. All who remained were a few children the reavers kept alive to bring back to their den.” his throat tightened and he cleared it noisily before going on. “A boy I knew spotted me as I watched from hiding. He was only four but he didn’t call out. As young and frightened as he was, he was a scavenger and knew not to give away my position.”

“Like I did.”

“Like you did,” Colton agreed without malice. “Had you kept silent I would have remained hiding, as I did then. And I would . . .” his eyes blurred with tears and he dashed them away. “I would have been twice as damned!”

She put a comforting hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was my decision. But I won’t leave another pup to the reavers. I’d rather die than live through that again.”

Lina glanced at the flooded shaft and licked her lips. “Do you really think we can make it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

She slugged him hard in the shoulder. “You could have lied, you idiot.”

Up the shaft, something gave with a loud
clang!
A reaver shrieked.

Rags growl deepened and his golden eyes grew bright.

“Now or never,” Colton said to Lina. “Do we swim or fight?”

Reavers rushed from the darkness, scrambling along the walls, floor and ceiling like melted locusts.

Rags charged in, diving into the blistered ranks with a savage howl.

“We’d better not drown,” she said weakly.

He grabbed her hand, and together they splashed into the raingrease. “Hang on to my belt. And don’t swallow any of it.”

Lina seized his belt. “No problem.”

He whistled to Rags. “Get in here you mangy lizard!” he shouted, and then dived down into the wet darkness with Lina beside him.

He hit the floor belly-first, nearly expelling the air from his lungs. Tightening his lips, he clawed along the cracked floor, feeling his way through the oily murk. It was slow going and soon his lungs burned. He pushed on, Lina a dragging anchor at his waist. Colors flickered under his eyelids and his pulse pounded in his ears. His muscles grew leaden and his mind wandered to dreams of unseen reavers grabbing at his ankles. The shaft went on and on.

She was right. They were going to drown.

Colton surged up, breaking the surface with a wet scream of denial. Floundering in the muck he gulped down the rank but welcome air. She came up with him. Coughing and spitting, she leaned against his back.

“Told you...” she paused to spit more raingrease from her lips. “Told you we’d make it.”

Too exhausted to laugh, Colton examined the alcove around them. The walls, ferrocrete and metal, were marked with drawings of odd-looking beasts with long necks and spotted hides. He knew this place. It was close to the World Wall. A short corridor led away from the pool and the cracked ceiling bled dim sunlight.

Helping Lina out of the pool, he turned back to search the glistening surface for sign of Rags. “Where are you?” he muttered.

A bullet-shaped head broke the surface and Colton nearly swooned in relief. “You had me worried,” he scolded as the worlhound doggy paddled to shore. “I thought the reavers got you that time.”

Rags grunted as he climbed from the pool and then gave a violent shake, spraying raingrease everywhere.

Colton wiped his face clean and gave the worlhound a hard look. “We’re wet enough, thank you,” but then added, “glad you made it, Rags.”

Dropping to her knees, Lina scratched roughly at the worlhound’s ears. “Who’s a good worlhound that bites the nasty reavers?” she asked sweetly. “You are! Yes you are!”

Rags’s licked her face, replacing raingrease with saliva.

She giggled.

“Yuck,” Colton said. He glanced at the sky, noticing the darkening clouds through the cracks in the roof. “Another storm’s brewing.”

The floor trembled, dislodging soot and gravel from the ceiling in a dusty rain.

The earthquake lasted only moments but Colton frowned at black ripples it left in the pool. The tremors were worsening, growing more frequent, just like the storms.

“We better hurry,” he said, scarcely aware he spoke aloud. “Or there’ll be nothing by the time we reach your magic machine.”

Her eyes lit up. “You believe me?”

“I don’t know Lina,” he said. He took an empty tin from his pocket and filled it with raingrease. “But something is very wrong. I can feel it in my bones, can taste it in the air. I don’t know if the Gate is a savior machine. I doubt it. But I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Backing down away from the pool, he dribbled a line of raingrease on the floor behind him.

Lina followed him, squeezing excess muck from her vest as she walked. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”

“Even if Odin is right and the Gate leads to a wasteland, it’s no worse than staying here. The city is dying.”

Though she’d pointed out as much herself, Lina shivered at the words. “So we use the Gate?”

He nodded, still trailing raingrease as he walked. “Yes. The only problem is Odin has the key to the Gate.”

“Won’t he let us use it?”

“I’m not sure. I doubt it.” They came to a sharp turn in the passage and he peeked around the corner to make sure the way was clear before leading Lina around it. “But we need that key.”

Continuing the line of raingrease around the corner, he discarded the tin and knelt beside Rags. He whispered instructions to the worlhound, wishing he didn’t have to ask so much from his old friend.

Rags whined, nuzzling his neck.

“I know,” Colton said. Giving the worlhound a fierce hug before he stood. “But it’s the only chance we’ve got, Rags.”

With a whining grunt, Rags turned and ran down the hall.

“Where’s he going?” Lina eyed the line of raingrease curiously. “And what are you doing?”

“Rags is running an errand.” Taking out his flicker, he touched it to the grease and struck the action. Fire licked up, racing back toward the pool. “And I’m making sure the reavers don’t follow us this way.”

Bright light filled the passage and thunder rolled across the Maze.

*   *   *

They wove their way through a corridor cluttered with large sections of broken glass.

“Why wouldn’t Odin let us use the Gate?” asked Lina for the third time. She ducked beneath a horizon sheet of glass, staying well clear of the razor edge. “I thought you said he used to be your friend.”

“Odin was my teacher but he doesn’t have friends. He’s taught generations of scavengers, orphans like me mostly, showing us how to survive in the city before sending us out to find dens of our own.”

“Generations? Just how old is this guy?”

“Old. Very old, but stronger than a worlhound and faster than any man has a right to be.” his eyes grew distant and he added softy, “Sometimes I wonder if he’s a man at all.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

The passage abruptly opened up ahead and Colton motioned for her to stay low behind him as he crept to the end of the corridor.

They’d reached the end of the Maze. Outside, a soot-floored clearing nestled at the base of World Wall. Flanked by hillocks of blackened stone, a gentle gravel slope climbed from the clearing to a pair of golden doors twice as tall as a man. The World Gate, pristine despite the passing of a thousand storms, its shining surface glowed with a pale light.

Colton searched for the palm-sized keyhole in the Gate. Though he knew where to look, it was too far to make out.

Lina’s face lit with excitement. “The machine,” she breathed. “Colton, we found it.”

She started to rise but her caught her arm.

“We are not alone,” he whispered.

She froze. “Reavers?” she asked fearfully.

His gaze swept the rocks taking only moments to spot movement among the slabs. He sniffed and was unsurprised by the faint odor of treated raingrease.

Well, he hadn’t expected Odin to leave the Gate unprotected.

“Odin or his students, I’m guessing. We’ll go out to meet them but we have to be careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Odin has been guarding the Gate a long time. If it is your machine, then he knew. He knew but lied about it, lied for years.”

“Maybe he didn’t know about the machine,” she said.

“Odin has the key Lina,” he replied grimly. “And he knows more about the ancients than anyone. Believe me, he knew,” he handed her his knife. “If it comes to it, don’t think, just cut. We need that key and it’s going to cost blood. Are you with me?”

She paled but took the knife and tucked it into her belt. “I’m with you.”

Colton smiled. “Good girl.”

Stepping out from cover they marched out of the Maze together, stopping at the center of the clearing where Colton grounded his spear.

“You might as well come out!” he called. “I can smell the grease on your bowstrings.”

He waited for a reply but received only silence.

“Come out Odin! The clouds are gathering and I don’t fancy weathering a storm in the open!”

A flicker of silver in his peripheral was his only warning. His spear blurred, knocking the metal shaft from the air before it could plunge into his heart.

Lina yipped as the arrow clanged away, ducking behind Colton but he only scowled at rocks from which it came.

“Is this how you would greet a former student Odin?” he demanded. “Shall I kill the one who shot at me by way of reply?”

“You know the rules,” answered a gravelly voice from the rocks. “These lands are for me and my pupils alone. You are one of mine no longer Colton. Go home.”

“I didn’t come for your food Odin.”

“Then why?”

Colton drew a steadying breath. “I want to use the Gate!”

“The Gate is death,” Odin roared from hiding.

“To stay in the city is death!” Colton shouted back. “It is dying under our feet!”

A tall man, dressed in dark hides, stepped from the rocks. He was broad of shoulder and lean of waist and his bare arms were thick with corded muscle. His white beard was braided with silver wire and was nearly long enough to cover the wafer-like key held on a chain around his neck. His grin was wide and friendly but his eyes...

Colton felt his throat tighten whenever he met Odin’s gaze. The man’s eyes were calculating, always calculating and they contained all the emotion of a dead lizard-rat.

“Who says the city is dying?” Odin asked.

“I do,” Colton said. He gestured to Lina. “And she does.”

“She looks as if she crawled from a sewer. You both do,” Odin eyed their greasy clothes. He walked toward them, his spear held loosely at his side. “Who is
she
to convince you of such nonsense?”

“She’s Lina, a skyper. The last of her clan, as am I. The reavers have taken everyone else.”

“I’m sorry for you both.”

Odin approached to within a few steps of them and grounded his spear. “A skyper you say?” he scratched his long whiskers. “It has been a long time indeed since I’ve spoken to one of the scraper folk. How goes life above the clouds?”