by Fran Wilde
“Where are we going?” Rya stood, ignoring my gesture. She followed us through the narrow tunnels.
When we reached the littlemouth cave, Aliati hummed until the creatures glowed.
Rya gasped, peering closer at the walls, until Aliati pulled her away. “There’s more to see.”
When we exited into the night-darkened meadow, Aliati kept humming. Slowly, the littlemouths in the meadow lit up as well.
I turned to her. “I thought you might like to see where your father fell. Where Dix’s man killed him. Where dissent and betrayal ended his life.”
Rya stared at the place on the ground where I pointed. “I knew he died here. I didn’t know why. Or exactly where.”
“We need to work together. No more surprises,” I said. Rya nodded.
Aliati was quiet, so I spoke. “Djonn has the last word on everything. Aliati and I are his seconds; orders come from us.” I had little to lose.
Djonn looked up, gaze shifting between the three of us. “That would be good, until we are on the ground.”
“Are we agreed?” Aliati said, looking at me and then at Rya.
“Yes,” Rya said, still staring at the ground. Her Aivans mirrored her motion.
I spoke once more. “We thought you might like to sing Remembrances. We’ll join you if you like.”
There was a long pause accompanied by the sound of our feet on the cave floor, heading back inside. Then, finally Rya’s voice, softer than I’d ever heard it. “I’d like that.”
And for a moment, we were a community, saying good-bye, together.
26
MACAL, ABOVE
Above the cloud, time grew short for those who stayed
The danger of more tower collapses sped up time, even as it seemed to slow our movements and our thoughts.
The blackwings and tower leaders worked together now, coordinating the creation of large kite spans from all the remaining silk in the towers, caging of silk spiders and bees, and sending those downtower. They flew escort on tiers of citizens going lower to ease the apprehension of so many evacuees. Across the more stable towers, scavengers helped gather supplies for Djonn’s designs. The climbers he’d already built in the midcloud crawled their way up the towers daily, transporting lighter-than-air below as quickly as those who had stayed could make it.
And each day, as I watched more citizens disappear below the mist of the upper cloud, my throat squeezed shut.
There still were too many of us still above. We couldn’t possibly all get away.
But I wanted to believe we could. Each last one of us, blackwing or citizen, Singer or Tower, elder or fledge.
The tower abandonment song came to mind again, and I brushed it away.
Up was no longer safe. We’d chosen a safer course, to the horizon.
For many Allsuns, since the Spire rose above the clouds, the towers had been organized to obey Laws. Fortify and Gather were useful now; one word, and most citizens except the very young knew what to do and how. But the days were growing few and there were still too many holdouts.
“Macal!” Urie hailed me that morning as he circled up to the heartbone tapping platform where I was working. “We’ve got all the silkspiders below. They’re thriving in the damp. Who would have guessed?”
I smiled. “And Sidra? How is she holding up?”
Urie chuckled. “She’s got most of the camps organized, everyone on hang-sack rotation so that they are well rested, citizens cataloguing supplies, blackwings jumping at her orders. She couldn’t be better. Except…”
I waited for it. I knew what was coming. “Except she wants me to come down before the work is finished.”
Urie wouldn’t meet my eyes. “She sent you this.” He held out another fiddlehead. “Said you would understand.”
I did. The fiddlehead meant life, and living it. “Tell her I hear and understand.” I pressed the fern between my fingers. “But Djonn sent a message that we’re so close to having enough lighter-than-air to float all the kites, I can’t go yet.”
“The next kites are ready to leave now, and Djonn’s got some extra foils hooked up that will scoop the wind above the clouds and help float the kites.” Urie sounded unsure. “It looks very smart.”
Everything Djonn designed was smart. I was almost ready to believe he could fly without wings at this point. “How is he?”
Urie shrugged. “No one sees him except Nat and Aliati anymore, he’s working so hard. They bring him food, make sure he rests. I suppose he’s fine.”
“And the blackwings?” I knew Nat had asked Urie to work with them.
Urie grinned. “They’re all right. They tried to organize a kite for themselves, but Sidra wouldn’t have it. They’ve been descending in groups of three or four, sometimes after a long shift on pulleys.”
I frowned. “How many are safely on the ground now?”
“About a third of the city, we think. We’ve lost the last of our whipperlings. Most haven’t returned even once.”
So they’d been sending kites down blind. I turned my head towards the work platform. “Check for any remaining silk and supplies anyone was hoarding in the towers. We’ll need it, I think. Make sure everything’s moved that can be moved? And then get down as low as possible. If you have a chance to get on a kite, take it. Tell Sidra to do the same, even if I am not there yet.”
Urie nodded. “I’ll see you soon, then.”
The traps were slowly filling with heartbone, but it was a strange color. We wouldn’t be able to distill gas that lasted from this, I could already tell. Clouds, we were cutting it close. “Yes, you’ll see me soon.”
Urie took off, and I flew to the next tower being tapped, where three of Rya’s blackwings worked. They, too, had been getting off-color heartbone. “Head for the center of the city, see if there are good sources there.”
They flew fast against the setting sun.
We were running out of time, and we knew it.
* * *
Later that day, I went to see the last five artifexes still tending the stills and keeping the fires banked. Slowly, a large skymouth husk was filling with gas, but the heartbone smelled smoky in the alembic. The alembics themselves looked like they’d seen better days too.
“I think that’s one of the last batches.”
One artifex—a young woman—turned to me. “At least the still is working again.” Her voice wavered with exhaustion and relief. “We might be able to do one more batch.”
For a moment, I was lost in the memory of Doran and Dix mining this stuff from the Spire, of what it had been used for last: to destroy the city council and begin a war. Below, Djonn worked with some of the very blackwings who had helped Dix do this, who’d helped imprison him. But now it was to save the city, not destroy it. If we could continue to come together like that, we might survive.
What we once feared would now help save the city. Or at least the part of the city that was most valuable, the community here, the people.
At least, I hoped it would.
The lighter-than-air we’d just mined was the last batch we needed to match Djonn’s request. “Good work,” I said.
We could get this gas down and begin to pack up our equipment. We could leave.
The young woman turned back to her task. But one of the blackwings working with her followed me outside. “Are you sure we’re safe up here still?” he demanded. “There are fewer people each sunrise. More are sneaking downtower into the clouds, to safer places.”
I silently wished those flying in the dark down the towers good luck and good health. “I can’t blame them, can you? They are afraid.”
“They should be given Lawsmarkers, held up as examples.” The blackwing was outraged.
“Would you go down, if your duties were discharged?” I asked slowly, thinking things over. A few moons ago, this balcony would have had excellent views of Viit and Densira. Now it was sky and cloud, with a few dark birds dotting the space between.
“Wouldn’t y
ou?” The blackwing stepped closer.
“I’m in charge up here. I’ll go down last.” I didn’t want anyone else to suffer for the decisions I made.
Long ago, the Singers would have made the same sacrifice, before they became too busy saving their own skin. Long ago, they would have put the people of the city before themselves. Perhaps I was that kind of Singer. But I also wanted to hold Sidra again, wanted to seek out our future together, wanted to help lead the new community. And I most certainly didn’t want to die.
“You should go. We’ll find someone to do your work.”
And I turned my back to him so that he wouldn’t see the hope in my eyes that he would stay.
A rustle of silk, wings unfurling. Then I was alone on the towertop.
* * *
That evening, sitting in the workers’ tier at the base of Varat, I found myself surrounded by comforts the city could not take with it. With only a few of us left—seven at my last count—there was plentiful food, and enough water, finally. We slept on soft cushions from Amrath. The young artifex played her dolin. And when I woke, she had departed for the clouds, and there were even fewer of us than yesterday.
The heartbone had changed color on every tower we searched. We were done with that. The only thing left was to distill it into gas, and that could be done below, closer to the kites.
Across the gaping places where towers had been, a flock of dark birds flew in a thick formation. They lifted above the city and flew out over the clouds.
The bats were long gone. We hadn’t seen a gryphon or a skymouth since the city shook. And now what seemed to be the last of the birds were fleeing.
I looked at my five companions. “It’s time,” I said. “Find a kite and head for the ground.”
There was no hesitation, no protest. They hastened to gather the alembics, the heartbone. Their panniers and nets were packed as quickly as I’d ever seen. Then those flying the alembics down took off in pairs, the equipment held between them in a net. The others, carrying supplies, waited until they could spread their wings and join them below. One by one, they leapt from the tower balcony.
For a moment, I watched them go.
Then I took off as well, for a final circuit of the city, tower by tower.
One last journey seeking out stragglers and anyone who might have been left behind.
I passed Mondarath and Varu, flew close by the space where the Spire had disappeared below the clouds, and gave my attention especially to the silkspider towers, which had been stripped of their riches. At each tower, I called out a warning to any residents remaining. I heard no answers.
At the one surviving bee tower, I found two young whipperlings, both hatched that morning and abandoned. I tucked them in pockets in my robe. “You’ll be safer here.”
At Grigrit, I flew close to the tiers, listening again. All I heard was the whisper of wind through bone. At Haim I hailed the air, and none answered.
I was the last person in the city, the last to fly the sky and the tiers here. And for one moment, with the sky wide open and blue, towers still standing bone white and beautifully stark against the sky, I did want to stay. Or, rather, I couldn’t bear to leave.
Then I curled my fingers in my wing grips and began the slow circle to the undercloud below. Down, first to join my companions in the cave, and then to the kites.
As I passed below the clouds for the last time, the cold, damp wind felt like tears on my cheeks.
27
NAT, MIDCLOUD
In the cloud, some stole away, taking kites for their own
Crews worked day and night at the edges of the city now.
Moc and I took a turn running the pulley cables alongside several blackwings and Aivans. Our arms strained as we and three blackwings slowly lowered more citizens, easing the thick fiber and tendon lines through the bone supports and blocks.
Throughout the midcloud, the remaining blackwings had shifted from nervous and troublesome to officious and demanding, even of Rya. Would she need to make another grand gesture? So far, the answer had been no, but I tried to stay on her good side. Her Aivans had increased in number as more blackwings wore her black feathers. They were much kinder.
The next descending kite crew included Sidra, as well as a number of Aivans and blackwings. We worked the pulleys in near silence, ignoring the blackwing who called me Brokenwings.
Now the Aivans did nothing.
“Nat, where’s Djonn?” Sidra whispered. “He should know there’s trouble again with the blackwings.”
“Helping Aliati and Raq, I think,” I whispered back.
When I’d last tried to speak to Djonn, Raq stopped me at the littlemouth cave where he’d been resting. “Let him be,” Aliati had said.
“What’s wrong?” I wasn’t going to be blocked that easily. Not after everything.
Aliati looked at me, and Raq put one arm around her shoulder. “Djonn’s sick, Nat. Yesterday was hard on him. Everything here is killing him slowly. The damp, the stress. His spine’s been twisting more each moon, since before we came below the clouds. It’s crushing him. He’s working through the illness, but this project may be his last.” She took a deep breath.
Raq had squeezed her arm, comforting her.
Then she’d said, “If we need to, we will take him away to let him rest. You’ll understand?”
I hadn’t, but I’d agreed anyway. An artifex had disappeared in the middle of the night, as had an entire kite.
Now, watching Sidra prepare to descend with her own kite full of former enemies, I worried more.
“Hush, you two,” an Aivan silenced the blackwings. “We’re all city now. Respect for those who help you.” Sidra nodded thanks as the blackwings quieted.
Moc grumbled, “Respect for blackwings.” I stared him to silence. The fledge still had no sense of caution, and needed one.
“Will you be all right with them?”
Would any of us? The rest of the crew included several from Mondarath: Urie and Dojha. Sidra smiled. “We’ll be fine. We’re taking a bit of Macal’s hope with us.” She showed me the fiddlehead fern, which she’d pressed between thin bone plates.
The winches and pulleys groaned as we lowered the kite. Soon, we lost sight of them in the cloud. With their descent, I knew far fewer people here than I did on the ground.
Among the tower survivors, fights and squabbles broke out. The tower leader from Amrath demanded the right to challenge Aliati for the truth about the ground.
Aliati met her in the air, and Amrath was quickly knocked into the meadow. The scavenger went back to work muttering, “Challenges. Here, in the clouds.”
All I could do was bite my tongue and hold my temper, and hope Rya would continue to bring the blackwings under control. Preferably without using me to do it. Or Moc. The young man had been teased particularly hard lately.
“Lawsbreaker, get me battens!”
“Singer fledge!”
“There’s no talking to them! They could kill us all,” Moc complained to the pulley crew as we helped lower another kite. A climber descended next to this group, making ready for us to load a third kite on the pulleys if we needed to.
Moc had worn his hands raw working the pulleys. He’d worked hard while ignoring all the yelling. I’d seen him helping repair the kite mechanisms with the artifexes who had come down from above as well. He was as exacting as his twin, and as diligent.
But the blackwings couldn’t resist needling him.
Moc was seething after the latest round of muzz-fueled name calling. “They’re chafing. There’s not enough of anything here for them to do except sewing and making bone battens. There’s plenty of that. That doesn’t excuse it.”
Moc looked at his hands, roughened by a recent shift harvesting more battens, and nodded. “Truth.”
He looked at the tower and up into the clouds. “Let’s finish this.”
He sounded so much like his twin. Determined. Strong.
That afternoon, we ri
gged a third pulley system at the base of the cloudline. Several of the last kites were ready to put into position. It was grueling work.
The pulleys—a hundred of them—had held all the weight we gave them. And the latest kite-tiers had wind scoops, giving them more lift. They could be steered much more easily than the first box kites. They were bigger too, each holding several tiers of people. The lighter-than-air that supported them was among the last in the city.
Macal’s inspiration, Djonn wrote on a message chip. This was widely shared among the towers, and a cheer went up around the meadow.
“And cloudbound ingenuity and discipline,” Rya added. She hung with me by the pulleys, checking them carefully. “We work well as a community.”
I had to agree, for the most part.
Still, the proximity of the pulleys to the base of the clouds worried Rya. “This is a dangerous place. I don’t want anyone to risk a fall. Weren’t there safer places we could have secured those?” she’d asked.
She wouldn’t let me forget the loss of her blackwing when the wind gave out. But I knew the answer to this question.
“On the contrary.” Using Aliati’s sketch, I showed her what would happen if the city fell away from the pulleys. “The mechanisms won’t work. Lower gives us a better chance. We’re running out of time. We need all the chances we can give ourselves.”
I had my own concerns I wanted to bring up with Rya too. “We’re running out of resources as well. I’ve noticed supplies missing, a whole stretch of prepared kite boxes gone.”
Rya, still looking at the kite being strung on the pulleys, its leading curve trying to lift in the wind, narrowed her eyes. “Nat, who would do that? Scavengers? Moc?”
“Not Moc. Perhaps blackwings?” She was not going to pin this on scavengers either.
“The blackwings are well in hand. But I haven’t seen Aliati all day,” she said. “Nor Raq.”
I bristled at the accusation that those two might be causing anything to go missing. Caution, Nat. I’d needed to ask, despite the risks. “Moc and the scavengers have worked as hard as anyone here, getting supplies down, building kites. They wouldn’t steal.”