Aluminum Leaves

  Aluminum Leaves

  A Broken Cities Novella

  Marion Deeds

  This story is dedicated to the first responders and the survivors of the Sonoma County and Butte County fires of 2017 and 2018, and their families. You personified sacrifice, strength, courage and resilience during the fires and in the many months after. Who are the real action heroes? You are.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Acknowledgments

  Falstaff Books

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Ash the color of pewter puffed up around Erin’s calves with each footfall. Heat radiated through the soles of her shoes. She curled her free hand over her nose and mouth, but smoke tore at her nostrils with jagged claws.

  The predawn light was the color of copper, reflecting the orange flames on the hill to her right. She fled, dodging half-seen shapes that grew out of the murk. She ran past blackened cars, charred window frames, ruins of chimneys standing like sentinels among the destruction. Red and blue lights flashed at the corner of her eye, and two figures carried a third one between them, heading for an intact car. Habit slowed her steps. That’s Mrs. Jubowsky, I should help… Then memory forced her on. She ran, veering west toward the dry creek bed that curved underneath the freeway.

  Someone yelled after her to halt, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t afford to.

  Now and then, a spot of a different color glowed among the grays and the fierce orange of the flame-lit smoke, a random object untouched by fire. She ran past a purple backpack, the gleam of an antique coffee table, the peach-colored face of a doll, each thing flashing by in a second like an image caught in headlights.

  Her own house held no such spared objects. Her mandolin was gone. Her clothes were gone, her laptop, all her mother’s cookbooks, her toothbrush. Erin’s baby book was gone, her grandmother’s scrapbooks and the gray plastic carousels filled with slides from her grandparents’ vacations, slides that she and her father had talked about digitizing but never had—gone. The pen and ink cartoon her brother Chip had drawn of the two of them in superhero capes—gone. Threadbare Blue Dog, the stuffed animal she’d had since she was six—gone.

  She ran past the border of the neighborhood, across the street’s softened pavement into the black skeletons of trees. The messenger bag thumped against her thigh, but she didn’t let it slow her down.

  “He’ll send them in fire,” her grandmother had warned. Two years ago, they moved by necessity into a house that was more than they could afford, to be closer to the frontera. They had replaced their lawn with decorative rock. The entire neighborhood kept its yards neatly manicured and well-irrigated. They were two miles away from the hills. They thought they were prepared, but they hadn’t been prepared for this.

  She stopped thinking and jumped, skidding down a deep decline and into the dry creek bed. This was the worst place to go. It was a banquet of fire-fuel shaped to funnel the flames right toward her, but she had no choice.

  Even now she heard one of them behind her.

  They didn’t howl, they didn’t bay, the hunter hounds. The sound was something between a crackle and a hiss. She didn’t look back, just crashed through the blackberry brambles and the whipping branches of young live oaks. Twin knives stabbed into her chest with each inhalation. A branch yanked at her hair. She left strands behind, her scalp stinging. Where the creek bed turned and ran underneath the freeway, there was a culvert. She had to reach it before the hunter hounds or the fire reached her.

  She saw it now, ahead of her. Sheets of orange sparks flowed over the low street bridge like water, igniting the oak branches and the thicket of weeds. In a flash, fire bloomed on both sides of her. She pulled up, coughing. Black smoke drifted out of the mouth of the culvert, snaking toward her. In that moment all courage, all hope, left her. Chip was dead, killed in a foreign desert. Vianovelle had already killed her grandmother. He had already killed the Carews and taken the collar, the tool that allowed him to control elementals. The Augustos and the artifact they guarded, the lantern, had vanished. The Wing family was dead too, although Wing Mei might have escaped across a frontera.

  Her grandfather had died in a hospital bed, and her parents in the twisting column of flame that had been their expensive house. They died buying her time to escape with the last artifact, time to reach the frontera. And now the frontera was filled with smoke. They sacrificed themselves so she could escape, and there was no escape.

  “We must always be ready.” That was what her grandmother had said. “One of us must always live to carry on, to go through our frontera to the next point if necessary, whatever the cost, even if it means leaping to a world we do not know.”

  The way to the next point, the other world, was blocked by fire, and what was the use now? Vianovelle had all but won anyway. He controlled the hunter hounds, which three years ago hadn’t even existed. Who knew how much his strength had grown?

  She heard the crackling sound behind her and turned. The hunter hound coalesced out of smoke, thick grayish ropes of it twisting together, solidifying into legs, its clawed feet digging into the earth. Its body was stocky, the neck thick, and in that long head, eyes the color of sparks studied her. Sparks leaped from the tips of the wiry bristles that covered it. Except for those sparks, it might have been formed from earth, but it was fire.

  Erin gripped the strap of her messenger bag. Relief flooded her body. No more struggle, no more secrets, no more fighting. No more loss.

  Her brother had drawn them as superheroes.

  The hound lowered its head and its ruddy teeth gleamed.

  Always, they had known they were different, and always, they had been told that their mission was vital—vital not only to this world.

  Fire flowed into the culvert, she was sure.

  Vital not only to this world, they had been told, but to many worlds, many points on the labyrinth.

  The smoke would tear out her lungs and the flames would crisp the flesh from her bones, and in the end for what? For nothing.

  The hound stalked forward, snarling. Behind it, the second one began to form.

  At least, if the fire took her body, and turned the artifact she carried into puddled metal, then Vianovelle would never have it.

  Chip had drawn them as superheroes.

  She shut her eyes, turned, and ran into the smoking oven of the culvert. Smoke drove her down, and she stumbled, but she kept her footing and pushed her body forward through wall after wall of heat. Through her eyelids, the air glowed golden. Behind her, the air shuddered with the growls of the hounds.

  She gripped the strap of the bag and threw herself into the hot golden glow.

  Trevian placed a fist-sized lump of black rock in the dying coals of his fire, stretched out his legs, and sipped from the cup of lukewarm tea. Fires glowed like greenish jewels across the plain, other prospectors like him. He felt the folded letter in this pocket crisp as he moved, and wished he’d captured a few sprites for his sprite-lamp, just this once. Their light made for better reading.

  He tilted his head back, studying the broad band of stars above him. His grandfather had written in his journal that the Ancient cities, which Trevian and the others mined, had glowed so brightly with their own lights that stars could not be seen at night. Trevian had put it down as a mad raving—his grandfather had certainly never seen a city of Ancient. No one had. He’d agreed with his father’s terse judgment, “That old man was turvy,” at l
east until he’d come to this sea of Ancient a year before. The ruins were so vast he could not walk their length in a day. What he had thought were hills, dotting both side of the lazy curving river, were not made of rock and earth. They were folded buildings, ruins, covered over with soil from decades of winds, sprouted with grass and brush.

  Trevian had prospected two veins of Ancient before he had come to this one and gathered a good stake. Each time, some dissatisfaction had pushed him on farther to the north what some poets called the home of the rising sun until he had landed here.

  In his past was a comfortable bed blanketed in silk and local wool, a valet, fine dinners with the other boss families of his home city, and the most stylish clothes in the finest fabrics. He had never once since childhood felt as at home there as he did here now. He slept in a lean-to made of two sheets of loomin and cooked over the black rock fire, digging through the veins of Ancient in search of loomin, gold, or copper. Each sennight he hiked along the river with his pack or his two-wheeled cart to the town of Lily Bend at the edge of the basin, where he cashed in his stake. He bought supplies, picked up the occasional letter from his sister, mailed one to her, and visited the bath-house. If his takings had been good, he bought himself a book.

  There was risk. Elementals could attack, and mestengos, armed and seeking treasure, often lurked at the boundaries of the seams of Ancient, ready to rob or kill. But even with the danger, he felt satisfied and nearly at peace.

  He supposed he was putting off reading the letter that Aideen had enclosed along with hers in the envelope. After all, he had read hers twice in the two days since he had picked it up. And the second note was not his first contact from Uncle Oshane. He didn’t really know why he was hesitating.

  At this point, were he at home, his father would say, “Be a man, Trevian, stop acting like a boy.”

  He shifted his weight and slipped the papers out of his pocket. Dropping the sealed note by his side, he carefully refolded his sister’s letter and slid it back into his pocket. He weighed the sealed square of paper on his palm, feeling his heart pound a little faster.

  This came by messenger, Aideen had written. I don’t know where our uncle is, as usual. No letter for me, of course, but you were always his favorite.

  His name was printed neatly in the center of the square.

  He slipped his finger under the seal and lifted. The paper crackled as he unfolded it.

  Trevian—

  I have made a discovery that promises greatness for us and for the entire Crescent. You are a copper-hunter, and the true legacy of the Langtrees lives in you. Oswald’s fear of our heritage has crippled him—I am glad it’s not crippled you.

  I will share these wonders with you when you meet at the place where you made your decision to be yourself, not just a mute puppet for your father.

  —Oshane.

  How like Uncle Oshane to write as if the outcome were assured.

  The place where you made the decision to be yourself… Trevian looked around. No, his uncle didn’t mean here. But how did Uncle know what had taken place at Merrylake Landing?

  He cringed a bit inside at the knowledge that his decision two years ago had surely been a nine-day scandal at home. No doubt everyone knew. He would be a fool to think otherwise.

  He hadn’t seen Uncle Oshane in person since he’d been a boy. He conjured up a face from that memory: greenish eyes, thick black hair, a mischievous grin. There’d been a winter festival. Uncle Oshane had been there, a laughing sharp-eyed man with a flautine, who piped on it and rang out the notes; who sang; who told bawdy tales of Cheviot the Ram; who danced with all the kitchen girls and galloped through the halls like a horse with Aideen, whooping with laughter, on his back. And there had been low, angry voices from his father’s study, and his uncle was gone, although letters and gifts, strange bits of Ancient for both him and Aideen, had arrived through strange and twisty channels. One gift was the protective amulet he still wore on his hatband. He didn’t think his father ever knew about the letters or the gifts. Oswald hated all prospectors.

  Of course, he saved his most corrosive venom for true copper-hunters, those with an affinity for the metal—the affinity that Trevian had.

  What had Oshane discovered? What could promise further greatness for the Crescent? The Crescent was stable and wealthy, at least that he knew. If Oshane had discovered something, it had to be about metals and about charms.

  On the low hill due north of him, part of his claim, a sharp blue-white flash of light escaped one of the many slanted tunnels. Trevian’s hand dropped to the hilt of the knife on his hip. He waited for the rumble of a collapse, or a bigger explosion, which sometimes happened in the Ancient, but the night remained quiet.

  “Langtree! Did you see that?” Cosigan, the prospector to the east of him, yelled. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” he shouted back.

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  A breeze flitted across the valley, carrying the scent of the river. It ruffled Trevian’s hair. At the edge of the basin, where natural hills sifted the rain down into the marshes that cinched the Ancient site, a few sprites sparkled gold and white.

  He stood up and put the letter in his pocket. Once again, he wished he had a sprite-lantern. He picked up his lamp, opened it, and used the fire tongs to pluck up three coals, which he dropped into the cylinder. The light was dimmer than what the sprites radiated, but it would serve. He put on his hat. After a few seconds’ thought, he picked up the iron spar he sometimes carried and tied the leather loop handle onto his belt. It paid to be cautious.

  As he reached the border of his camp, he touched the copper band that rimmed the hat, awakening the protective charm around his camp. He started toward the hill. It was dark, and even with the lantern, the way could have been treacherous, but Trevian knew this terrain. He didn’t feel the sense of well-being that heralded copper to him because he had cleaned out most of it, along with the gold, from this quadrant of his claim months ago. But the rutted earth with its vaguely geometric demarcations was familiar to him, and soon he was climbing the side of the hill, near the mouth of the tunnel, with ease.

  He’d seen flashes of light before—they all had. Usually, a flash preceded a collapse. Sometimes they brought deadly explosions, scraps of metal hurtling out like bees, tearing through flesh. The wisdom of the prospectors was that the flashes and the collapses were, like the earth tremors that plagued the entire Crescent, caused by elementals deep in the earth, either mating or fighting for territory. Trevian’s father had made his fortune from elementals, and Trevian knew they weren’t the source of the flashes. And the origin of this particular pulse of light, he suspected, came from a different source entirely, a source his maternal grandmother in the flatlands had spoken of, story-told as a fireside tale. It was a different kind of energy than those the elementals emitted.

  He climbed into the tunnel and paused, letting his senses settle. Beyond the greenish circle of light thrown by the lantern, the black was uniform at first. His eyes adjusted and he could see the curve of the tunnel’s ceiling in the dark. Holding the lamp overhead, he advanced deeper into the shaft.

  The space had a rank smell, and once, something crackled and crunched underfoot. Predators had laired here before, he knew. He smelled no black rock, no burned wood, and none of the acrid scent they sometimes smelled after an explosion. He took four steps forward.

  Warmth trickled up his arms and into his face, making him want to smile. There was copper somewhere ahead of him, and it was approaching him. Now he saw a flicker of strange bluish-white light.

  He stood, quiet, lamp raised, and waited.

  Shivering light painted the sides of the tunnel and rapid footfalls grew louder. Raspy breathing filled the shadowy space.

  “Who comes here?” he called.

  The breathing checked. A voice called back, rising at the end. He couldn’t make out the words. He walked forward, hand on his knife hilt.
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  A shadow shaped itself on the wall, a human shape, and then the blue-white blossomed in the tunnel. Beyond it he could barely see a figure, a pouch slung on one hip, one hand outstretched. He tensed, expecting a weapon, but it held the source of the light.

  “Here,” he said, speaking in a normal volume. “Toward the light.”

  Eyes gleamed at him, and the figure stepped closer. In the greenish light from Trevian’s lamp and the other strange light, it stood, shoulders hunched slightly. Now Trevian scented a familiar odor: wood-smoke and a bitter unpleasant smell he’d often noted near fires in the seams of Ancient. The figure lifted its head and started to speak, but a cough racked its torso. It bent forward, coughing until it nearly convulsed. It flailed behind itself with the hand holding the light, speaking words that tantalized him, familiar but eluding him, until Trevian recognized one, one his grandmother had used.

  Frontera.

  Chapter Two

  Erin managed to control the coughing. The man still stood there, holding up an old-fashioned lantern that emitted a weird greenish glow. He looked human. “Do you understand me?” she said. “I came through a frontera. Frontera?”

  He spoke, and she could almost make out the words. She didn’t know what to do. In all her grandparents’ stories, in all the training, no one had told her what would happen once she crossed the frontera. No one had said she might enter a world where she couldn’t understand the language. And, of course, she hadn’t asked, because she’d never dreamed it would really happen. If it did happen, she had never once thought it would be her.

  “Frontera?” he said. He took his hand off the knife and gestured behind her, with a word that sounded like there?