by Paul Collins
She hurried across the square, making for the city wall to gain a vantage point. Only dimly was she aware that dark clouds had piled up with unbelievable speed. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind died as though they had entered the eye of some unseen storm. The next moment, however, every dog in the city began yapping and howling. The hair on the back of Tab's neck stood up.
‘What have you done, Fontagu?’ she murmured to herself. ‘And what did I let you do?’
Tab clutched the cloak tight and kept running. As she ran strange visions jolted her. Dozens of torrential fragments, disjointed glimpses, shards and slivers of things half seen, darted through her mind. She reached the city wall, pounded up to one of the watch-platforms, and had to suddenly clutch her head. She felt dizzy and sick, and would have been scared if the rest of the world hadn't been going just as crazy.
Then the glimpses stopped. She breathed a sigh of relief just as an eerie silence fell upon the city. Tab looked up, and gasped.
The bruised, purplish clouds looked like the coiled intestines of some enormous beast. A vast vortex had formed, circling slowly above Quentaris like a gigantic whirlpool turned upside-down. Thunder pealed. Lightning jagged, setting off ear-splitting detonations.
Everything began to shake. The vibration started deep in the earth beneath Quentaris, spread up through the rock on which the city was built, and made the houses tremble, great and small. The tallest towers shook.
Then, with an indescribable din and a shaking that knocked Tab off her feet, the entire city of Quentaris, hills, harbour and all, wrenched free from the earth that had cradled it for over a thousand years, and rose shudderingly up into the sky, higher and higher, revolving faster and faster.
A party of adventurers led by the famous rift guide, Rad de La'rel, was just leaving a rift cave in the mountain range. They were galloping down the embankment as though Zolka had broken through the rifts. Then those in the vanguard toppled like bowled skittles. The ground shook like a blanket. Laden donkeys and horses whinnied, fear-crazed.
Tab held firmly onto the nearest parapet. The city trembled as it rose into the clouds with a tremendous roar of crushing rock and grinding chaos. There was a terrifying moment of blackness – then a sickening transition before blinding sunlight burst upon Quentaris. The city was still spinning, but slowly now… until it was sucked into the churning mouth of the vortex.
People stumbled about, dazed by what had befallen them. Unbelievably none of the city's buildings had collapsed – magic bonding had held them firm – but anything loose such as market tables and wagons had been smashed to kindling. One by one the survivors of this catastrophe realised that their entire city was now drifting like a sky pirate's ship over unfamiliar terrain.
ONE YEAR LATER
It had been a year of enormous change.
Tab stood on the port-side battlements where she had stood exactly a year before, gazing out over the city. Bathed in brilliant sunlight, the waters of the now-enclosed harbour sparkling, Quentaris was a buzz of activity. It was market day down in the town. A forest of gaily coloured stalls and awnings, not to mention some large outlandish umbrellas, had blossomed in the city square, clustering about the base of the mainmast.
Overhead, vast canvas sails crackled and snapped in the wind. The spider web of rigging bounced. Tab craned her neck, staring up at the colossal world of rope and canvas, of bouncing catwalks, towers, turrets, and a complex bridge structure from which Quentaris was steered. Squinting against the sun's bril liance, Tab saw the tiny figures of riggers, canvassers, splicers, knot-men, dousers, lookouts, mizzen-men and the former roofies who made excellent sky sailors – not to mention officers and midshipmen – crawling and bobbing amidst the broad sheets of canvas.
Quentaris looked exactly like an enormous sailing ship, from the rift hills at the stern, to the jutting bowsprit of the prow, and various great masts in between. And, just like such a ship, Quentaris sailed.
Only it wasn't the sea that it sailed upon. It was the sky. Tab leaned out over the parapet and stared into… space. A cloud wafted past. She looked down as Quentaris cast its huge shadow over the alien terrain far below. A herd of galumphing, three-horned creatures stampeded. The fear-crazed animals left a trail of billowing reddish dust in their wake. Above, a flock of sharp-beaked birds with pink plumage flitted amidst the immense masts and rigging. The fore-topsail and main-topsail were fully bloated. Everyone had become accustomed to the ever-present raucous flapping of the city's sails. With a fresh breeze, Quentaris was travelling at a swift six knots.
Tab never tired of this sight.
She thought Quentaris, a city she had always loved, had become magnificent. Indeed, in some fashion that she couldn't quite put her finger on, Quentaris had come alive. The sails were its lungs, capturing great gasps of air to thrust it on its way; the rigging was its sinews, holding everything together; the masts, its bones; and the great slab of earthen rock upon which the city and harbour and surrounding wall sat, its flesh and organs. The sails crackled, the rigging sang, and the two great engine houses – port and starboard – throbbed rhythmically as they converted the magical energy of icefire into the ire ore that powered the gigantic propellers that were used when the winds died and the city becalmed.
Despite all this, Tab shivered as she remembered the Rupture itself, the wrenching upheaval that had thrown Quentaris into the rift vortex that had formed in the sky. Tab knew that Fontagu and the stolen icefire gem had been responsible. She even knew the name of the spell used, having returned to the slaughterhouse to find both the gemstone and the scrap of paper bearing the words Fontagu had muttered.
Only by then, all the words, except for the sealing phrase, were fading even as she stared at the note. Later she had looked up the remaining words in an ancient book of charms in the library of the Magicians’ Guild. Only one spell used such words.
The Spell of Undoing.
From the entry, she had come to understand that somehow Fontagu had messed up. The Spell of Undoing, used properly, should have ‘undone’ the city: undone its prosperity, its luck, its success in battle, as well as the workings of the rift caves. In the process, many might have died.
But it had somehow gone wrong, perhaps because of Fontagu's nervous mispronunciation of the final words.
Instead, it had ‘undone’ Quentaris in much the way that one popped a cork from a bottle and threw it away. Tab knew this wasn't a very ‘magical’ way of thinking, but it helped her make sense of what had happened.
Of course, no one knew of her involvement in the Rupture, nor of Fontagu's. She dreaded the day the citizens of Quentaris found out. Without a doubt they would hang Fontagu from the nearest spar. Tab, who had merely distracted Fontagu at the critical moment, might simply be thrown overboard or, if the citizens were feeling generous, keelhauled.
Quentaris had a very large keel.
On the other hand, there were a few who pointed out that the theft of the icefire had summoned a great many magicians back to Quentaris, in time to be marooned along with everyone else. And without the magicians, there would be no Navigators’ Guild; without the magicians, there would be no hope of finding their way home.
Without the magicians, Tab would also not have become an apprentice guildswoman, clerical division. Being a runner and a clerk was a long way from being a magician, but at least she got to loiter with magicians and, when she was lucky, to see magic at work in its various forms: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
A sweeper came slowly towards her along the wall. His cap was pulled down over his face and he seemed intent on his work, though Tab saw that he handled his broom sloppily, almost with disdain – as if he thought himself meant for better things.
‘This is so demeaning,’ said Fontagu, looking up from his broom. He leaned on it, scowling at Tab's big grin. ‘And look what they make me wear. Grey. I ask you, how can you make a statement with grey?’ He brushed some grime from his tunic and sniffed.
‘Well,’
said Tab, ‘that's your lot for my keeping quiet about your causing this mess. I believe the Dung Brigaders still have vacancies, if you'd like to apply.’
Fontagu paled. ‘No, no, not at all! Look, see, see how much I love my work!’ He started sweeping vigorously but only managed to conjure up a dust cloud that sent them both into great splutters of coughing. Fontagu sighed gloomily. ‘I'm not really very good at this.’
‘I would never have noticed.’
‘Did you know that it takes a whole month to walk around the entire perimeter wall? A month. Rain or shine. Around and around, that's what I do, around and around and around… ’
He really did sound depressed. And dizzy.
‘You have only yourself to blame,’ said Tab, trying not to feel sorry for the old scoundrel. Any attempt to find out why Fontagu had tried to sabotage Quentaris had been unsuccessful. But Tab would find out one day. She promised herself that much.
Fontagu sighed again. ‘If only I could wear some thing a little more… stylish. And colourful. And, oh dear, do look at my fingernails! I don't suppose I'll ever be able to enter polite society again.’
‘Well -’ Something in the way she said this made Fontagu's head whip around. He looked at her hopefully.
‘What? You've found me a better line of work? Something in keeping with my sublime talents?’
‘On my errands I noticed a scroll outside the Paragon Playhouse. I asked Lorenzo about it. He needs a -’ began Tab.
Fontagu shivered with delight and clapped his hands. ‘No, no, don't tell me. They need a leading man? Someone commanding, handsome, a man of action, and yet with a heart that melts the ladies.’ He saw Tab's look. Apprehension swept across his face. ‘An understudy? A small part, perhaps -?’
‘They need a prompt.’
Fontagu stared. He mouthed the word prompt in horror, then stamped his foot petulantly. ‘I won't! I absolutely and most assuredly won't. Who do you think I am? Some bit-part actor desperate to get his nose in the business for the first time? Why, once I was the toast of towns. My name was up in candlelight, on the marquee itself! I – I just couldn't… it wouldn't be me… to squander such talent… to be so close and yet so far… to look but not to touch… Oh. Oh. Oh, all right, I'll do it!’ he snapped. ‘When do I start?’
‘Tomorrow. Tell Lorenzo that I sent you. He owes me a favour or two.’
Fontagu grumbled something.
‘If that was a “thank you”, you're welcome.’
Fontagu gave her a sharp look. ‘Well, excuse me for not falling on my knees and kissing your feet. I do believe my present situation is due, in part at least, to your… what shall we call it?’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Exactly. Seems I recall you promising to tell everyone where to find me if I didn't take this job. And for the record, you little vixen, I admit to nothing!’
Tab shrugged, feeling only a tinge of guilt. ‘Admit it, you deserve a lot worse. Anyway, from tomorrow, your situation will be much improved.’
Fontagu looked nervously at Tab. ‘He – he won't change his mind?’
‘The job is yours.’
Fontagu leaned against the outer parapet. He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. ‘I feel quite faint,’ he said. Suddenly he turned and flung his broom over the low railing. Tab leaned forward and watched it fall, trying not to grin. Five thousand feet below, the huge shadow of Quentaris was sliding over a forest. Clustered on its outskirts were several hamlets surrounded by the ploughed patchwork of fields.
Tab frowned. The broom, now lost to view, would still be falling. She edged back a bit. She didn't have the best head for heights. ‘I hope you don't brain somebody down there.’
‘I will need a disguise of course,’ said Fontagu suddenly. ‘So many know this noble face of mine, it's sure to stand out.’
Tab mentally cringed.
‘I'd better go and prepare,’ said Fontagu. He looked down at himself. ‘And I'll need clothes.’ The excitement in his voice was suddenly cut by a groan. ‘But I haven't the price of an old boot!’
Tab held out several copper rounds.
Fontagu gave her a puzzled look, but quickly pocketed the coins. ‘Happy birthday,’ Tab said.
Fontagu's eyebrows lifted. ‘I don't believe it's my -’
‘No, it's mine.’
‘Oh.’ Fontagu blinked. ‘Well, may you have glad tidings this day and lifelong prosperity. But really, I must dash. I have to see my tailor.’
And with that he hurried off.
Alone again, Tab returned her gaze to the miles of rigging and sails – a world unto itself, which had become known as ‘upside’^** – and wondered if her best friend, Philmon, was on duty right now. She watched sky sailors clambering along spars, amongst rigging, or swaying on rope bridges that stretched between the enormous masts.
The masts themselves were a sight to behold and had been taken from a forest of gigantic trees – each hundreds of feet in diameter and as much as a thousand feet high. They were so huge that rooms, tunnels, stairways and winch-elevators had been hewn into the trunks themselves. The immensely tough but amazingly light trees had been found growing plentifully in the first rift world the Spell of Undoing had flung them into. It was their luck to have found a fairly peaceful world – unlike the one that followed – and thus some time to adapt to their new situation. Tab remembered it clearly…
Quentaris had started to spin as it climbed towards the gaping mouth of the vortex.
Faster and faster it turned, entering the whirlpool and slowly climbing its sides. Here the light was dim, like the light before a storm or a catastrophe. The city shuddered and rocked, and the spinning vortex threw down great lightning strikes which blasted houses and towers. Fires broke out. At the very apex of the whirlpool, where it was narrowest, a peculiar stillness reigned. Below, great chunks of rock fell from Quentaris, plunging down into the gaping chasm left in the land below.
The noise was tremendous. It was a miracle that Quentaris’ under-city had remained pretty much unscathed.
At the very top of the whirlpool, blackness engulfed them. People screamed and all of the city's animals howled, or bayed or cried out in whatever voice they had. Tab's legs shook and she had to clutch the bat tlements to stay upright.
Others had gathered at the wall, and most had shut their eyes in fear soon after the vortex swallowed them, but Tab had resisted the temptation. She wanted to see.
The climactic ending – later called the ‘Rupture’ or ‘Upheaval’ – lasted only seconds. A sickening transition followed, then blinding sunlight burst upon Quentaris.
From all about came the sound of cheering and laughter.
But slowly it subsided. The word spread quickly, and where it spread a hush fell. Everyone rushed to the walls and peered over, to see for themselves.
Quentaris, still spinning, was rapidly slowing. But that wasn't what caused the great silence. Quentaris was now a floating city, drifting amongst clouds. Beneath the level on which the city was built, a great jagged shaft of rock projected downwards for hundreds of feet, much like the roots of a tooth.
No one ever managed to explain why Quentaris floated, why it didn't just crash to the ground, killing everyone. But float it did, and in the end the best theory was the simplest one: that the same magical spell which had torn them from their world and hurled them through the vortex into another, also kept them afloat.
And while fear had come quickly, being airborne also brought hope. A floating Quentaris might one day find its way home… if it survived
…
Indeed, that first day a wind picked up and slowly pushed Quentaris towards a range of high mountains. Fortunately, the wind dropped and instead of crashing into jagged peaks, Quentaris came to a gentle rest against them.
Quickly, the city's engineers made Quentaris fast. The nearby countryside was scoured, the forests of huge trees discovered, a plan hatched. Shipwrights and carpenters plied their adzes, augers and caulking hamme
rs. Sail makers got to work and soon great swatches of canvas and rigging were stretching across the city. The dockyards stayed open day and night.
Quentaris would not just be a floating rock at the mercy of the wind.
It would be controlled. It would be navigable.
And it was the magicians who would do the navigating. Now more than ever, Tab wanted to be one of them…
Tab realised with a start that the morning was passing. She glanced at the scroll in her hand. There was no way she would get far in the Navigators’ Guild if she couldn't even deliver a letter on time.
She headed for the Naval Headquarters, located in and around the mainmast. She made her way hurriedly to the Square of the People, dodging market stalls and managing to buy nothing, which wasn't hard, especially when the vendors saw her apprentice's tunic. Everyone knew how poorly paid apprentices were.
Tab reached the imposing sculpted entrance of the Naval Headquarters, and stopped as she always did to look up. Rising straight and sheer above her, the massive polished trunk of the mainmast – en crusted here and there with barnacle-like dwellings, protuberances and walkways – rose to a dizzying height. The section known as ‘uppermost’ was just a vague shape lost in misty cloud.
Tab gulped, and hurried inside. A moment later…
Uh-oh, she thought as she swept through the doors of the despatches department.
The Archon's nephew, Florian Eftangeny, was on duty. Tab bit her lower lip. She had won her job as Quartermaster Dorissa's personal clerical assistant fair and square, but Florian had been next in line and the Archon's nephew hated her for it. To be beaten by an ex-Dung Brigader!
‘Running little errands, are we?’ sneered Florian, eyeing the scroll in her hand. His slug-like upper lip curled scornfully. ‘Haven't really advanced very far, have we?’