A pilot at the controls sends Fox a blazing smile. The ship thuds and bounces and Fox winces, but he can’t help smiling through the pain. Solid and cheerful, with twinkling eyes in a round face, and a black mop of hair, Kitsune looks nothing like the sly trickster fox of his Noosname.
‘Thought we’d surprise you.’ Kitsune gives the soft laugh that has kept Fox grounded and calm in so many tense moments. ‘Didn’t want to get your hopes up in case I didn’t make it. And then you nearly didn’t. And Pan . . .’
His eyes meet Fox’s in wordless sympathy.
Fox focuses on the moment to keep his grief at bay. ‘You’ve flown all the way from New Jing? But how . . . ?’
‘When you’re commander of the eastern sky fleet, many things are possible,’ says Kitsune breezily. ‘Make maximum use of mobility, as Lawrence of Arabia would say.’
Fox bursts out laughing. Kitsune always refused to discuss in any detail the plans to hijack a fleet of sky ships. That was his job and Fox must trust him, he said; and because he had to, Fox did.
‘It was best to keep all of that top secret and out of the ether, just in case. But here I am.’ Kitsune steers the ships out of the turbulence and turns to his old friend with a gentler smile. ‘And here you are.’
Kitsune and Steerpike exchange glances.
‘We always thought you’d be here, in the end,’ Steerpike confides. ‘There was always a back-up plan. There are Surgents in New Mungo all ready to take over the reins should anything happen to you. Or,’ she smiles, ‘should you happen to veer off-plan.’
‘Lawrence of Arabia’s top tip,’ Kitsune declares. ‘Make a virtue of rebel individuality, irregularity and unpredictability.’
‘The best laid plans of mice and men,’ Fox admits with a wry smile, ‘often go askew.’
And in so many unexpected ways, he thinks, silently blessing his mother who has rebelled in the most unpredictable way of all.
‘Let the Surgency know that Sarah Stone, my mother, has taken over my fight in New Mungo,’ he tells Kitsune who absorbs this news in rapt wonderment. ‘Tell them to trust her and – and to keep her safe.’
One of the co-pilots turns from the controls. ‘We’ve made radio contact with the Atlantic Surge and located a mountain city called Ilira, a trade port famed for its bridges, deep in the east-coast fjords.’
Fox feels his spirit leap.
‘Ilira’s fleets will join the Surge,’ adds the other co-pilot. ‘That’s the message coming through. And there’s a gypsea fleet at Atlan point, south of Ilira.’
‘The Arctic Pirates,’ says Steerpike. ‘Under the command of the Vulture of the North. With a name like that,’ she grins, ‘I’m glad he’s on our side.’
‘Our nearest landing platform is at Fort Aurora, some distance north of Ilira. We’re about to begin our descent,’ Kitsune announces. He turns to Fox. ‘The new settlement at Aurora seems far from settled. There are signs that people there will join us, if we give them the choice. We have a chance of taking a major stronghold of the empire, perhaps without too much of a fight. Here’s a bit of irregularity and unpredictability that wasn’t planned for by your father and his cohorts, Fox! Our people are fascinated by the real world. They’re beginning to feel and act in ways the empire didn’t foresee now they’ve been set free from their cages in the sky. We spoke to the command unit at Fort Aurora earlier – from the noise they were making I thought they’d an uprising on their hands, but they were in raptures over the spectacle of an aurora storm.’ Kitsune chuckles. ‘The empire doesn’t know what it’s unleashed.’
Fox remembers what he glimpsed as the airship soared away from the sky tower. Some of the unwilling police guards who couldn’t bring themselves to fire on their own people were turning on their superiors, while others joined the exodus from the rooftop. All those rebels unleashed themselves from the empire in that moment and chose the risk of the unknown.
‘You have Midnight listeners at Aurora,’ says Steerpike. ‘I tracked their Nooswave in the midnight login. Tell them we have the Storyteller on board,’ she suggests to Kitsune. ‘That’ll cause more excitement than an aurora storm.’
Fox winces with pain as the ship shudders in descent, but his hopes are rising. ‘If the Earth itself has stirred the people in the new fortresses of the Northlands and the Midnight stories have awoken their dreams, maybe this war is already half won.’
‘Maybe,’ says Steerpike. ‘But too many still have dreams,’ she looks away, ‘like your father’s. There’s a battle ahead yet.’
The airship’s tremors deepen. Fox’s ears pop and his stomach flips as they lose height rapidly to follow the ragged line of the coast where the edges of the vast island fragment into sea fjords. And now they are flying over an astonishing thing: a network of glistening pathways woven between the mountains, across a winding path of sea.
Fox’s heart jolts painfully as if tied to an anchor that has just plummeted down to the miraculous world below.
Look for the shining bridges of Ilira, Lily said. Find me there.
Fox stares down through the starboard window. In his mind’s eye he remembers a dark-haired girl on a broken bridge.
‘You need to upgrade that ancient junk,’ Steerpike scoffs, as he takes the emerald mindgem and tiny godbox from his pocket.
‘Never!’ says Fox, as he connects up the trusty old godgem. ‘Where would I be without this?’
The sizzling green curtains of the aurora tear apart. A pandemonium of colour rips through, erupting all around the airship, as if the universe has cracked open and a glorious chaos of tomorrows can’t wait to tumble into today.
The world is full of tomorrows, thinks Fox.
And the world is all before him now.
ON A WING OF MAYBE
Mara shields her eyes against the sun, stalled mid-throw by what looks like a silver fish swimming across the blue ocean of sky. A shining shoal follows and she pauses to watch the fleet of airships flying up from the south.
The globe tingles in her hand, charged and ready. She feels dizzy, full of dread at what she must do. What’s she waiting for? Get rid of it, now. Throw the globe, the whole cyberwizz, into the sea and be done with it all for good.
But Mara’s fingers grip the globe as she feels the deep, raw tug inside that always leads her into trouble – and keeps her alive. It’s the same impulse that once made her peer beyond the horizon and leap into the unknown – to the Weave where she first found Fox, then out on to the world’s ocean where she lost almost everything. But the tug is her internal compass, always pointing to her true north. It brought her here to the top of the world, to a new life on a changed Earth. It’s that same magnetic tug that must have brought Lily through the mountains to Ilira and led her, as it led Mara, to Fox.
None of it would have happened without the cyberwizz she is about to hurl into the ocean. Would she even be alive? She would never have known Fox and he would not have begun the revolution to save the future from the sky empire. Lily would never have been born.
Mara takes the halo and wand from her pocket. Barely thinking, barely able to breathe, she slips on the halo, flips open the globe
Just once more. Just for a moment. Just to see.
The strange language of the cyberwizz is etched in her memory like ancient carvings on stone. Diving into the Weave is as easy as surfacing from the ocean and knowing how to breathe.
The real world fades.
The magnificent bridges and thundering waterfalls of Ilira all feel far, far away.
The wind of a homecoming tide wraps around Mara and seems to sweep her towards a broken bridge in a place where anything felt possible, once upon a time.
A LOVE THAT COULD CHANGE THE FUTURE . . .
Mara’s island home is drowning as the ice caps melt and Earth loses its land to the ocean. But one night, in the ruined virtual world of the Weave, Mara meets the mysterious Fox – a fiery-eyed boy who tells her of sky cities that rise from the sea. Mara sets sail on a daring j
ourney to find a new life for herself and her friends – instead she discovers a love that threatens to tear her apart . . .
CAN LOVE MEND A BROKEN WORLD?
As the ice caps melt and the world drowns Mara stands at the bow of her ship, determined to believe that somewhere there is land still. But a floating city is about to throw her off course . . .
And in the ruins beneath the towers of a sky city, the boy Mara loves plots a lonely revolution of his own and hopes for the day when they will be together again.
AMY KATHLEEN RYAN
A SHIP HEADING FOR NEW EARTH IS HALFWAY THROUGH ITS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY ACROSS THE GALAXY.
ON BOARD, SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLDS WAVERLY AND KIERAN ARE PART OF THE FIRST GENERATION BORN IN SPACE.
THEY ARE IN LOVE.
THEY BELIEVE THEIR FUTURE IS WRITTEN IN THE STARS.
THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN A STRANGER BEFORE . . .
. . . UNTIL THE DAY THEY ARE WRENCHED APART AND SUDDENLY FIND THEMSELVES FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES.
SKY CHASERS
THE FIRST HEART-STOPPING ADVENTURE
Julie Bertagna was born in Ayrshire and grew up near Glasgow. After an English degree at Glasgow University she worked as the editor of a small magazine, a teacher and then a freelance journalist. She has written many award-winning novels for teenagers and younger children and speaks in schools, libraries and at book festivals across the UK. Her books have also sold all over the world. Exodus, her first novel for Macmillan, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award and was described by the Guardian as ‘a miracle of a novel’. Julie writes full-time and lives in Glasgow with her family.
Visit Julie Bertagna’s website at
www.juliebertagna.com
Praise for Exodus:
‘This is a miracle of a novel . . . a book you will remember for the rest of your life’ Guardian
‘Like all the best fantasies, this one confronts some very real issues, and it’s the most exciting book I’ve read all year’ Artemis Cooper, Mail on Sunday
‘Bertagna’s writing steams with her passion for a story . . . imaginative, inventive and challenging’ Glasgow Sunday Herald
‘An ambitious, futuristic environmental wake-up call’ Michael Thorne, Scotsman
‘The question posed by this absorbing novel could hardly be more important: how is life on Earth to be sustained in an uncertain future?’ Linda Newbery, Times Educational Supplement
‘This is a fabulous book – I cannot rate it highly enough. It proved impossible to put down and gripped from start to finish. The story is beautifully written, enthralling and inspiring . . . It was thought-provoking and challenging, whilst telling a cracking good story. I cannot wait to read more from this author’ amazon.co.uk
‘A gripping and intense plot, with believable and endearing characters . . . I loved the quirky writing style that made it oh-so-real . . . very, very well written!’ amazon.co.uk
Books by Julie Bertagna
Shortlisted for the
Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year 2002
Winner of the Lancashire Children’s
Book of the Year Award 2002
Best Scottish Book of the 21st Century (The List)
Highly Commended for the
Eco Prize for Creativity 2005
Winner of a Santa Monica Green Literature Prize (US)
The story continues in
Shortlisted for the Angus Award in Scotland
Winner of the Catalyst Children’s Book Award
And concludes in
Praise for Zenith:
‘For all those who enjoyed Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy . . . terrific storytelling power, an ambitious and intellectually stimulating novel’ lovereading.co.uk
‘So vivid is Bertagna’s writing, so urgent her narrative . . . Exodus and Zenith are like two chapters in some magnificent epic’ Scotland on Sunday
‘I was transfixed by the poetic vision of Julie Bertagna’s Zenith. A breathtaking sequel’ Bookseller
‘Awesome: a collection of characters we learn to love, a vivid sense of time and place, a page-turning adventure’ Herald
‘A book that is to be treasure, not least for its cross-gender appeal but also for its sheer ambition and adventurous spirit’ Times Educational Supplement
First published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-0505-0 EPUB
Copyright © Julie Bertagna 2011
The right of Julie Bertagna to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Julie Bertagna, Aurora
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