Nissim cried out sharply.
Diamond tried to shout, “Stop.” But some thick hot and slightly bitter syrup had filled his mouth.
The gun that shot him was dropped, and the Master saved his hand, and the monkey brought the gun straight to Diamond.
The boy coughed up blood mixed with nameless secretions.
Good carefully set the gun in his hand.
Then an adult appeared in the doorway, attached to another gray pistol. Tar`ro looked at the two bodies lying close to each other. His weapon moved like a nose, as if sniffing the air. Then the surviving guard saw Nissim pressing hard at his bloodied hand, fighting to staunch the flow, and he walked around Diamond, staring at the wounds that were already beginning to heal and the coral gun in his hand and the orange-headed monkey that kept every hair erect, ready to battle anyone who threatened what was his.
Diamond saw that much. But his wounds and what passed for adrenalin pulled most of his focus to places inside him. Ribs were shattered and his flesh was shredded, his heart opened wide and both lungs choking, and one of those fat rock bullets had burrowed into his spine. But those injuries weren’t dangerous. He was certain to survive. Every damaged organ had calmly put itself to sleep, and every essential function was replaced by hidden talents, by secret reserves. He couldn’t remember being any way but alive, yet this was a different kind of life. Breath was unnecessary. Blood was just another kind of clothing, and without a heart, he could be naked while the blood was washed. He felt like a fancy new battery fresh from its box, full of sparks, and maybe this was why he ate so much every day. Invisible motors filled his tiniest places, eager for their chance to help. Those motors gave him strength. Even with twin chest wounds, he felt as if he could pick himself off the floor, running to the window and the walkway, escaping this wicked place.
But he remained sitting on the slick floor.
Another teacher had entered the room—a woman followed by the youngest, littlest children.
And beside her was a huge muscled fellow dressed in brown.
Karlan stared at the gore, impressed and maybe fascinated, and compared to everyone else, utterly calm.
Someone shouted from the world outside.
Three of Diamond’s classmates were already on the walkway, crawling forward, while a furious policeman waded over them, offering up a string of curses when he wasn’t telling the others not to come.
“The boy first, the boy now!” he said.
Something about the classroom was changing.
What was different?
Tar`ro knelt close to Diamond and looked at the monkey, but he was speaking to Seldom. He told the crying boy, “Help me lift your friend come on hurry.”
Marduk had changed. Stillness had claimed the long trunk. It had just happened, and Diamond accepted that as very good news. Whatever force or monster had cut Rail away at its roots had failed with Marduk. Diamond’s tree was too strong to die, and Diamond had known that all along. Joy took hold. Joy caressed him, and now he weighed nothing. Seldom didn’t need to help lift him from the floor. Suddenly everybody was as light and insubstantial as gnats, and the walkway was arched high in the middle, and the blimp had decided to yank itself into a very unlikely angle, as if it were trying to cling to the school’s roof.
The policeman guarding the walkway tried to shout directions or curse again, or maybe he just wanted a deep breath before doing whatever was to come. But his next step was clumsy, and the black uniform flapped hard as everybody in the room started to fly.
The policeman lifted off the walkway, and then he was gone, so quickly that it seemed as if he had never been.
Marduk had just wrenched itself loose from the world.
Everybody would die. Every unsecured body and piece of furniture were flung against the ceiling. Diamond hit hard and lay on his back looking at a floor swept clear of desks and books, but not blood. People were bleeding and hurt, pinned to the ceiling, and nobody had the energy to cry out. Tar`ro was still beside to him, shouting something about waiting, and Good clung to his boy, and Diamond started turning his head, trying to find the Master.
Tar`ro said, “Wait.”
Far below, Marduk’s branches pushed into the canopy that still held it on three sides, and then the largest limbs were grabbed by the surviving neighbors, and the tree’s plunge suddenly slowed.
Bodies and desks rained down on the floor again.
Diamond stood. He wasn’t sure when he stood or how, but the half-repaired body knew what to do. Seldom was beside him, stunned and limp. Diamond dropped the coral gun and picked the boy up and ran to the window, and he shoved Seldom onto the walkway and then did the same with Elata.
The police blimp was dropping back into view, both engines running full.
Tar`ro got behind Diamond, put a hand on him to shove him onto the walkway, but Diamond slipped sideways and ran to the big desk. The desk was again where it belonged, and Nissim was behind it, on his knees and bloody hands, fighting with his legs to stand.
Marduk hadn’t stopped falling. Branches exploded beneath them and the big limbs dropped to new perches where they would slow again, and each time the floor fell out from under them for a moment and then jumped up again.
Diamond tried to help the Master stand, but the boy wasn’t strong enough and they helped each other find their feet and run.
Tar`ro grabbed Diamond and threw him onto the walkway.
“When we break, grab hold,” he shouted.
Those words meant something, but he didn’t know what.
A web of soft rope and handholds was laid over a skeleton of boards, and the walkway was covered with scrambling bodies. But there were people still left in the room. They were classmates and little kids and a few adults, and Karlan. Not one day of Diamond’s life would pass without those faces and those voices coming back to him, calling to nobody but him, hands rising to where they always seemed within reach—some days thousands of hands wanting this single boy to rescue them—and his sorrow and the fierce anger would always make him fall quiet, if only for an instant.
Diamond crawled out onto the walkway.
The blimp started to lift higher, engines screaming, as if the machine was gamely attempting to hold Marduk still in the air.
Then Nissim and Tar`ro were behind Diamond, kneeling, fighting with the release mechanisms. The pressure was relentless. Worse, Tar`ro wouldn’t drop his gun and Nissim’s bloody hand had to be weak. Nobody could get past the two men, and nobody on the walkway could help. Pulling free was all that mattered. Ropes creaked sharply and the great tree picked up its velocity and then slowed once more, for the last time, and then somebody yelled, “Catch her,” as a tiny girl flew up at the two kneeling men.
In reflex, Nissim grabbed Prue before she fell into the open air.
Then Karlan emerged from the crowd, slapping the gun out of Tar`ro’s hand and pushing all three of them back up the walkway. That nearly grown man was huge and dangerously powerful, and he had no trouble winning a patch of terrain where he could turn, reaching down with both hands, one grand tug finally causing the releases to trip, saving all of them.
Then the walkway broke free, hooks and the blue school and the doomed tree left behind, and the man who had saved everybody looked up the walkway, smiling at them, shouting, “Hold tight you shits! Hold tight!”
THREE
Only powerful noises could reach across the Creation.
King’s father was a ripe example. Nothing about that human was physically impressive. His skeleton was a collection of narrow bones draped with weak pink muscle. Small eyes and small teeth and a youthful, inconsequential face made for a forgettable presence. His brown hair held no special tone. His skin was pale enough to look sickly. On social scales, the man was neither charming nor energetic, and despite a life spent in public realms, he had never told one joke worth its breath. Father’s most famous feature was a high-pitched voice, like a bird’s cackle pushed through some boy’s wet throat. When he laughed, he giggled. He would use the smartest, most reasonable words when addressing an audience, yet everything they heard sounded small, nearly weightless. On those very rare occasions when the Archon shouted, the voice had a nasty habit of shattering in embarrassing ways, threats emerging as sharp, silly daggers that left his enemies grinning, ready to mock him as soon as they were out of earshot.