by Fran Wilde
“What?”
The glow was like the marks on the citizens who’d questioned us. The same color as a littlemouth in the clouds. The speckles of glow pulsed when I hummed or spoke. “You still have groundmouth in your hair.”
“I thought I got it all out,” he said. He brushed absently at his ear again. The glow disappeared. “Just a trick of the light?”
I wasn’t so sure, but I let it drop for now. The smell of bone eaters grew stronger. Wik and I caught up to Dix when she stopped just before the ledge.
“There!” She pointed. Several greasy harnesses made of birdgut and fiber hung from the wall on bone hooks. “They do ride them! I knew it.”
She looked at me expectantly.
“No,” Wik said. “We have no idea how to ride one of those.”
“We need to leave this place. The only way down is that ramp or these birds. And if we go down again,” Dix said, “we’ll have to find a way off the city. We’ll need to run.”
At the moment, I was terrible at running.
Behind us, the tunnel darkened to black; ahead, the sun shone through a bonework gate. Outside, the bone eaters cackled.
“I’ll give you the bird back, after,” Dix promised.
I didn’t believe her, but I saw no way to get Maalik back without a huge risk now. She knew the city, and I didn’t. She had nothing to lose; I had everything. Below? I might find an advantage. “All right,” I said, and pulled a harness down from the wall. Over Wik’s protests, Dix played with the combination for a long moment, then pushed open the gate. I stepped through.
And found myself face-to-face with a juvenile bone eater easily twice my height. It clacked at me. Lowered its beak so the sharp point was an armspan from my nose.
Dix shut the gate behind me, with her and Wik on the other side. “Throw the harness over its head and put that bit of metal in its mouth,” she called. “That calms them.”
We weren’t high enough that the wind could hold me, but the breeze did a good job of carrying my curses away from the tower I stood on. “I hope you fall forever, Dix. I hope you land in a pile of guano so big that you can never clear it.” I could hear Wik cursing too.
Dix, from behind the gate, said, “Hurry, people are coming.”
The bone eater’s breath was hot on my cheeks. I hefted the harness and, with shaking hands, held up the metal piece. The bone eater looked at it, then at me, then opened its mouth.
When I slipped that bit of the harness into the bird’s mouth, it dropped neatly into a small divot on the sides of the beak, something too regular to have been nature’s doing. The thought gave me a shudder, but I threw the harness over the bird’s obligingly lowered head and moved to its side. I nearly tripped on a claw.
The bird had extended a leg for me to climb.
“Okay!” I said. I climbed on its back.
As soon as it felt weight, the bird began to move forward. Dix slid around the gate and scrambled up just as the bone eater took off, leaving Wik stranded on the rookery.
* * *
Steering a bird in the sky—especially one the size of a bone eater—was as strange to me as wings were to the people of this city. I tugged at the harness and hoped the bird knew what that meant.
Dix, her arms wrapped around my waist, whooped once and then fell silent as we wobbled and glided along the bird’s chosen trajectory.
For a moment, I reveled in the feeling of being in the air again. Then fear took over. I had very little control over this creature.
“Make it go faster!” Dix jerked on my robe.
I couldn’t make the bone eater go anywhere, much less faster. With Dix tugging on me, I nearly lost my seat. “We have to go back!” Wik stood on the deck of the rookery.
As I watched, he tried to duck back into the passage, but then backed out again. He hid behind a large basket.
He would be captured. Would I fight for him? Clouds, yes. I yanked the reins and the bit dragged on the tender part of the bone eater’s beak.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer Dix. I focused on forcing the bone eater’s head in the direction of the rookery. The bird’s body followed.
“You can’t go back!” Dix’s voice rang loud in my ear. “We’ll be captured again.”
The bird’s slow turn was all I could manage. Glancing out over the landscape as we closed the distance, I wished once again that the map were mine. Below, cities walked the large expanse of desert. Groundmouth divots patterned the ground. The outlines of old structures and dead cities etched the shadows with angles and straight lines from this height. Beyond a long ridge, sunlight glinted on more water than I’d seen in one place before. The cloud above us seemed to end over that stretch of water.
The bone eater screeched as we closed on the rookery. Other bone eaters croaked and cackled in discordant response.
Ours pulled and fought the bit once it realized I didn’t know how to command it, trying to throw us off. I fought to stay on, and Dix clung to me. Sweat drenched my robe by the time we returned to the balcony. My arms shook from holding tight to the reins. Where Wik had hidden, a basket was toppled on the balcony. The curators and the rookery trainer yanked me from the bird’s back before we landed. Dix toppled off behind me. Their sibilant language held a familiar note of anger.
What I had been furious with Dix for doing, I was now guilty of as well. A thief. A citykiller and a thief.
They bound my hands. Hauled us away, Wik tied beside me. He looked straight ahead, his jaw set. A bruise bloomed on his cheek.
“Can’t kill anything, can’t fly,” Dix said. Our guard cuffed her, and she quieted.
Wik shook his head, angry. We were hauled down the ramps as two more rookery workers passed us, carrying large sacks of offal. We glanced back to see a curator outside tying these to bone eater harnesses, save for the one I’d stolen.
“What are they doing?” I asked, wanting to hear Wik’s voice again and know that he was all right.
“They’re going to move the city.” Dix’s voice was extremely level. I braced for trickery and danger.
Wik’s jaw tightened. “How do you know?”
“Look at it. They’re preparing the bone eaters right now.”
If we were still on the city’s back when it began to move faster, we’d have a hard time disembarking.
Our guards dragged us farther down the ramp until we lost sight of the rookery.
They pulled us, three criminals, through the light-dappled corridors of the strange city.
18
NAT, MIDCLOUD
While Brokenwings and Magister flew from low to high
“If we want to move everyone off the towers quickly—” My words filled the cave. “We can’t take too much time debating risks, looking at other solutions.” I’d made my decision. I would tell them everything. I would. As soon as Ceetcee, Beliak, Elna, and the baby were safe below. As soon as the first kite descended.
Ciel would keep her promise, I knew.
But my companions in the midcloud cave waited for me to say something more, even Urie, the former blackwing. My certainty rose. This was dangerous information to share. If anyone talked—especially Urie—about what awaited us, and what didn’t, we’d never get my family down the towers. There would be panic.
The cookfire popped and smoked. The remnants of the meal turned to green paste in the bone bowls.
“I’ll tell you more about the city.” I meant it. I’d tell some of the truth now, some later, once my family was safe.
The baby cooed.
Macal leaned closer. “I had hoped you would.”
“Tower residents may despise life below,” I began. “It won’t be easy. I hated it. It’s hot and damp, and it smells terrible. We’ve never seen the like above the clouds. The only advantage is that you cannot fall any farther.”
Ciel heaved herself up from the floor. “Clouds.” She stomped towards the littlemouth cave. Moc followed her. She could have said somethin
g. But she hadn’t. She understood.
“Why can’t we stay above, then?” Urie said. “Float the cities like Macal had planned? How will we live?” He began to pace behind the cookfire.
Macal put a hand on his arm. “We have to go down. Everyone has to. It’s safest. We can’t panic others,” he said. He looked at Urie until the young man nodded. “We’ll find a way.” Macal looked at Djonn, then me. “A hostile environment like you describe is a lot to absorb.”
“Urie’s reaction is exactly why I’m worried about the towers.” Worse, what would happen when they learned the rest? What would Macal do? “Any group that decides to go its own way is fewer hands to help, more possibility that people will die. We have to hold together.” I stared at Djonn until he dipped his head in agreement.
Ceetcee stepped from the cave mouth and came to stand by me. “You did the right thing. Now we know. I’ll make some adjustments to the kites to try to keep out the rain.”
So much was outside of my control. “The ground needs to be a sign of hope—a way forward. It can’t be seen as a bad place, or people won’t move fast enough.” If they learned the whole truth, especially. Now it wouldn’t be.
Ceetcee patted my shoulder and walked back through the tunnels. “Come see what I’m working on. We’ll see if Elna’s awake on the way.”
Beliak joined us, the baby in his arms.
Elna slept in the littlemouth cave, the soft light illuminating her face. Occasionally, she coughed. The littlemouths pulsed a flutter of alarm each time.
Ciel and Moc sat on either side of her, holding her hands. “She’s all right, just tired,” Moc said. “We’ll get her down to the ground, and she’ll be better.” Ciel didn’t look at me.
I knelt by Elna’s side and took her hand. It felt cool, not cold. She murmured in her sleep. I wanted so badly to wake her. To talk through my decisions with her. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
“She’s worked so hard here. Tired herself out,” Moc said. Worry had completely replaced his usual bravado. “She’s been like a mother to me. To all of us.”
“Keep her warm,” Ceetcee said. “And make sure she drinks something when she wakes, has a little broth.” She handed a water sack and the last bone bowl to Moc. The boy took it and settled back against the wall, watching Elna.
Ceetcee gestured for me to follow her out of the cave, to the meadow. “I think I can make an adjustment to the basket designs that will help occupants shelter from the rain if they need to. I need extra hands, though.”
“Djonn can do this,” I said. “You need to start preparing to go to the ground.”
“We’ve been preparing to go up above the clouds,” Ceetcee said. “The opposite direction isn’t that much different.”
Oh yes, it is. I made another decision. “I have to tell you and Beliak something more. Djonn knows as well.”
Ceetcee climbed the scaffolding around the kite and gestured for Beliak to hand up her tools. Beliak switched the baby from his right arm to his left, reached into his robe, and pulled out the silk roll, tied with skymouth tendon, which had been Ceetcee’s tool bag since she became a bridge artifex. She took it with a sure hand, while holding on to the scaffolding with the other. “What is it, Nat?”
“Once you are through the cloud, the wind—” I looked behind me to make sure no one was listening. Only Djonn was near enough to hear, and he already knew. “The wind disappears almost completely. At ground level, there’s not enough to get up in the air on wings. That’s why Ciel and I didn’t come back sooner. We couldn’t.”
Ceetcee stayed silent for a long time. Feet crunched on lichen as Djonn approached. “That changes everything,” she said.
“No it doesn’t,” Djonn replied. “We’re still going down. We’re taking precautions.”
The knot of secrets was growing. Now I’d involved my family. Had I made the right decision?
Sitting down on the scaffolding, Ceetcee played with a piece of silk on the box kite. Beliak rocked the baby back and forth, keeping her quiet. His jaw tight, he stared at me. “I thought we said no more secrets. How could you keep this one from us—from them?”
“Only enough to get you and Ceetcee and Elna to the ground safe. And I’m telling you.”
A brief nod from Beliak. “You’re telling us. Not the city.” He stood beside me below the kites, and we watched the work going forward on our escape plans. “There’s still time to figure something else out. We could float plinths, we could escape that way.”
“There isn’t any more time.” Why couldn’t he see this? “If we split our efforts, we’ll run out of time.”
Ceetcee held her hand out to me, and then to Beliak. Wove her fingers through mine. “You helped get this started. You and Ciel. You came back up.” Beliak ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
“Not fast enough. I wasn’t here when you needed me.”
“We managed,” Beliak said. “We had Elna too. You were here, through her.” He clasped Ceetcee’s hand, then mine. “And I know you’re doing what you can to get us down safe. I don’t agree, but I will try to understand.”
Our linked hands made a web. A net. We leaned on one another. All I’d wanted to do was protect them. Now I knew it wasn’t enough.
My hope faltered. What if the lies had become too great, the net too weak?
Ceetcee felt me shiver. “It will be all right,” she said.
“How do you know? I can’t hope right now that anything will go right. So much has gone wrong.”
Ceetcee looked out at the meadow and then down at the infant sleeping in her arms. “Because we can make it be all right. We’ve come through hard times. I helped build the kites. I know they’ll work. Djonn’s designs are sound. That’s not hope, that’s effort.” She turned to me, her eyes framed by long lashes. “I’m putting everything I know into getting us—all of us—down to the ground safely. Once we’re there, I’ll do it again. That’s how I know it will be okay.”
The wind changed, and mist dampened her face. Beliak adjusted the baby’s covering—an old robe. “There’s no other way through,” he said. “We know that now. The midcloud has been hard on everyone. No one wanted to be here. We worried for you. But being here kept us from danger up above.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment that if we hadn’t been chased into the clouds, Beliak and Ceetcee would have been on Densira when it fell. Same as Elna. I shivered more. There was loss at every turn.
“How bad is it below?” Ceetcee asked.
I didn’t want to tell her much more. “I only know what the city is like. That was hard.” I shifted the subject, gently. “How did you get by?”
Ceetcee smiled at Beliak. “Everyone here helped. There wasn’t one moment I felt alone. But Elna was the pin that held everyone together. She just did things, and everyone followed her lead. She knew it was all going to be all right.”
The baby turned her head to look at her mother. Her tiny pink tongue darted out, then back into her mouth. It sounded as if she was kissing the wind.
There was quiet in the meadow as my family considered both my secrets and my keeping of them. The air was cool here, especially in comparison to the heat below. As they thought over what I’d said, I tried to memorize every line of their faces.
I’d lost them once. I wouldn’t risk losing them again. “You’ll go down with the first kite, then? If I promise to tell the others everything once I know you’re safe?”
Beliak and Ceetcee looked at each other. Beliak lifted the baby and placed her in my arms. She felt warm and, again, heavier than I expected. I held her close.
I’d worked so hard to hold on to hope and strength on the way up the towers. Now I held hope in my arms. There wasn’t room for any other feelings. Nothing that would hold us back.
Here, with them, it was suddenly all right to feel again. Feelings curdled in my throat. Not hope. Fear. Not waves of it, not an impending city of it, but a low, far-off beat of it, from the future. W
ould we survive? Would my family survive their journey tomorrow?
I knew the kite descent would be easier than my fall had been. Still.
“There’s so much danger,” I whispered, my hand reaching out to brush soft baby fuzz, like down, the head that fit in my palm. “How can you be here in a world with so much danger? How can I protect you from it?”
“We’re born into danger. We keep each other safe.” Ceetcee put her hand over mine. “We build our communities to withstand it. That’s why we love. Why we fight.” She tightened her hand. “If we didn’t fight so hard, the danger would get in. And we can’t let it.”
“I want to be so much stronger.” For you, for her.
“You are stronger than you know,” she said. “We all are. Climbing all that way. Ciel too. All we have to do is ride down.”
The baby squirmed in my arms and let out a yell that pierced the meadow’s gloom.
Beliak looked me in the eyes. “I think you might be doing the right thing, keeping the wind secret.”
Ceetcee tilted her head. “As for me, I can see both sides. But I want you to tell everyone soon. Promise?”
I nodded. I wanted to tell them also, but I was afraid. “Once you’re safe.”
She laughed quietly. “I’m building our rescue kite, Nat, assisted by the best of artifexes. We will get down safe. You’ll see.”
Her confidence warmed me. Made me feel safer too. I shifted attention to the baby in my arms. “What will you name her when you reach the ground?” I wouldn’t be there then, but I wanted to know.
Ceetcee and Beliak both smiled. “We’ll wait,” Beliak said, “until we’re all together. When you come down too. She knows she’s part of a family that protects her. That’s what matters now.”
Ceetcee leaned over and whispered in my ear, a soft breeze. “But if you have any favorite names, tell me.”
I whispered several names to her. Her eyes danced at the prospects. They were old names. Tower names. Good ones.
Names meant so many things. They told a history. What tower you lived on. I was Brokenwings and Densira, and Nat—Naton’s son. What would this baby be? “What do we wish for her?” I whispered back.