by Fran Wilde
Mac’s best friend, Eza, swings on a tether around the tier divider from the next platform. She is a year older, and has opinions. “You did nicely, Mac. I watched.”
Eza, being Nat’s daughter, can do nothing so easily or so well as annoy Mac. This has been true every day of Mac’s life.
“You did not watch,” Mac says. “You had your own lessons.”
She smiles, chewing a piece of dried fish with loud smacks. “I watched.” Eza sticks her tongue out.
Mac looks up at me, his gray eyes showing all the suffering that his face will not reveal.
“Eza can watch you fly. But she can’t interfere,” Wik says. “Don’t let your friends get in your way, Mac.”
“She’s not a friend,” Mac mutters, but he gets the point. Turns back to me. “Do you fly today?”
I smile. “I must. We need bone and brass. Rya says they need dried fish and more silkspiders. Their last batch of spiders died. Liope wants more lighter-than-air for Serra.”
“You always have to fly,” Mac says.
“It’s a long way. Easier than walking. Wik will stay with you, and if either of you need anything, ask Ceetcee, or Elna.” I pause, looking down at my son’s tousled hair, his hawk nose. “Do you mind that I go?”
“No,” he says, and hugs me tight. “Because you always come back.”
Across the platform, where the new kites are being added, I see Nat, Moc, and Beliak putting in battens according to Ciel’s latest plan.
“I’ll return,” I promise. I watch the kite rise in the air and tether itself loosely to the rest of our platforms, supported half on lighter-than-air and half on the near-constant offshore wind.
Tiers and tiers of kites, lifting into the sky, filled with friends and family. And below, more living in the cliffs on the ground.
White and yellow banners curl in the morning air, marking our city’s boundaries. We tried many names for the kites and the platforms: after the old towers, after our families, after battles fought. In the end we decided that we are one city for now—a city of wind and wings—not disparate tiers. Not yet. We call the city Horizon.
As I prepare to fly, Ciel’s and Elna’s voices drift from a neighboring kite, raised in song.
Verses familiar and new follow the breeze, describing our fall, and our rise. We sing to remember and to teach. We weave new words with old.
We lift on the wind. We soar.
HORIZON
by Ciel
As bridges burned, Mondarath fought above the cloud
While far beneath, four struggled to rise again, proud.
When monsters clashed, the groundbound watched a city die.
Pulled apart, towers weakened, unless a bridge was tied.
All that shook, all that fell was sky and bone,
The Magister sought the cause alone
Then two went far and two climbed home
On birdback, through cloudburst, so close to home
Across desert, through illness in search of home
Above the clouds, destruction vast, the Magister flew alone
Skyshouter and Nightwing climbed new cities formed of bone
And Brokenwings returned to find his mates.
A midcloud discovery, as the world quaked
Within the cloud, the rescue started
While Skyshouter found a city’s heart
The artifex’s craft became real in the sky
An old foe appeared, strange rules they defied
While Brokenwings and Magister flew from low to high
And Skyshouter fled from a city of light
The Magister hoped for a new kind of bridge
The Skyshouter abandoned city for far-flung ridge
The first kites descended, the blackwings found fear
A market, a coup, a quake; the clouds grew far too near.
A city forgotten, the Nightwing walked away.
Blackwings found the midcloud at start of day
Above the cloud, time grew short for those who stayed
In the cloud, some stole away, taking kites for their own
On dangerous ground, the Skyshouter searched for home.
The kites floated and crashed, all down so fast
While the Skyshouter found the ground hard and vast.
A city’s secret discovered one night at last
Stolen objects lift wings up high
While friends gather to bid a love good-bye
Stowaways steer by a different star
Before Brokenwings takes a leap too far
Against all odds wings finally soar
A city approaches, the Aivans want war
Another city awakes, friends seek farther shores
Chorus
We’re looking out to the horizon,
We’re headed for the horizon.
TOR BOOKS BY FRAN WILDE
Updraft
Cloudbound
Horizon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FRAN WILDE is an author and technology consultant. In 2015, her first novel, Updraft, accomplished the rare feat of winning the Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy while also being nominated for the Best Novel Nebula Award. The next year, The Jewel and Her Lapidary was short-listed for the Nebula Best Novelette category. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nature, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Wilde also blogs about food and genre at Cooking the Books, the popular social-parenting website GeekMom, and at The Washington Post. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part One: The Fall
1. Macal, Above
2. Kirit, Below
3. Nat, Below
4. Macal, Above
5. Nat, Below
6. Macal, Above
7. Kirit, Below
8. Nat, Between
9. Kirit, Below
10. Macal, Above
11. Kirit, Below
12. Nat, Between
13. Macal, Between
Part Two: The Gathering
14. Macal, Midcloud
15. Kirit, Below
16. Nat, Midcloud
17. Kirit, Below
18. Nat, Midcloud
19. Kirit, Below
20. Macal, Midcloud
21. Kirit, Below
22. Nat, Midcloud
23. Macal, Above
24. Kirit, Below
25. Nat, Midcloud
26. Macal, Above
27. Nat, Midcloud
28. Kirit, Below
29. Macal, Below
Part Three: The Rise
30. Nat, Below
31. Kirit, Below
32. Nat, Below
33. Kirit, Below
34. Nat, Below
35. Kirit, Below
36. Nat, Below
37. Kirit, Below
38. Nat, Below
39. Kirit, Below
Epilogue: Kirit, Home
Horizon by Ciel
Tor Books by Fran Wilde
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
HORIZON
Copyright © 2017 by Fran Wilde
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Tommy Arnold
Edited by Miriam Weinberg
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7787-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-7789-0 (ebook)
eISBN 9780765377890
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First Edition: September 2017