Emilie and the Sky World by Martha Wells

Author:Martha Wells
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: sky world, YA fiction, Adventure, Action, YA science fiction, Airships
ISBN: 9781908844538
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Published: 2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Emilie didn’t breathe easy until they reached the trees. They weren’t very tall, but she and Efrain were both short enough to walk under the ferny foliage without crouching down. It also provided some welcome shade, since she was sweating from the run across the crystal shard fields.

She wasn’t certain how they were going to get up the hill until they got to the base of it. From there, they could see the folds in the rock had formed natural ramps and pathways, much easier to climb than the steep, smooth slopes of stone. The hard part was trying to find a way up that would allow them to spy on the spot with the airship frame without walking directly up on it. After some fumbling on Emilie’s part and some bad advice on Efrain’s, Hyacinth took the lead, climbing rapidly ahead of them, then returning to show them the way it had found.

After a long scrambling climb with skinned knees and bruised knuckles, Hyacinth returned from one of its scouting forays and crouched in front of Emilie. It waved its blossoms and then gently touched her face.

“You want us to be quiet,” she whispered. She glanced back to make certain Efrain had heard, too.

It waved its blossoms again, but seemed satisfied and turned away, moving slowly so they could keep up with it.

It led them up a winding, narrow channel that might have been part of a watercourse at one time, now choked with dark green-gray weeds. They came to a spot where the side of the channel opened into a little cliff. Hyacinth stopped and pointed down. Emilie leaned past it to look and saw another dry water channel below this one, running parallel to it for a short stretch. But this one was carved into wide steps, the weeds cleared away.

Efrain squeezed in to look over her shoulder. They exchanged a grim look. We’re almost there, Emilie thought.

Hyacinth led them around a bulgy curve of rock, and then up the side and out of the channel onto a ridge. Looming above it, Emilie could see the top of the airship frame. Moving slowly and carefully, they flattened their bodies against the rock and climbed to the top of the ridge to look over.

Below was a steep-sided well in the side of the hill, which at one time might have been formed by water. It now held the cabin of an airship, still partially attached to the giant skeletal balloon frame and leaning at an angle. It was a large two-story cabin like the one on their airship, but it was battered and crushed along the bottom and had clearly been in a crash landing, perhaps even dragged over the stone of the hill. Shelters had been built into the side of the cliff with walls of piled rock, and roofs made of slender wooden poles, and there were also a rock fire pit and a square box made of slabs of stone that might be an oven.

And there were people.

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