by Fran Wilde
We both knew the Spire wasn’t empty. Not all Singers attended Allmoons on the towers. Some Singers, according to tower gossip, never left the Spire’s walls. They sequestered themselves in order to more closely listen to the city and discern its needs. They turned inwards for the good of the city. That was their sacrifice.
That was also our opening, Nat’s and mine. We glided close enough to the Spire that, if it had balconies, they would have seen us. The market nets were pulled up to the top of the Spire, their baskets bound as if for a storm.
“We are the Nightwings!” Nat crowed. Figures from a children’s song. “None see us!”
For the first time, I wondered if Singers stayed at the towers after Allmoons. No one flew at night, so they must. No one except Nat and me. We raced the dark now, two shadows in the gloaming light.
Nat took the lead again. “I know where we need to go. Tobiat said the chips were made for something about sixteen tiers down.”
We chased the dreams of an addled hermit and a dead man. As my anger ebbed, I grew afraid that we would soon join their ranks. Who was better off, Tobiat or Naton? Enough. I shook off those dark thoughts.
Ten tiers. My eardrums grew tight, then released. The clouds swirled too close, too dangerous. We were far enough down that, in any other tower, we’d be staring at filth-clotted walls. The Spire was different. The pristine exterior was decorated with carvings here and there, not filth. They didn’t throw their waste down the outside of the tower as the rest of us did. Either that, or they didn’t make any waste. Another Singer mystery.
I followed Nat, then flew by his side as we circled the sixteenth tier. No nets here, only grips and cleats where nets once were. He pointed to something rough-looking on our first circuit of the Spire. Not the sixteenth tier down. The fifteenth. A portion of the wall carved with several markings, made familiar by Naton’s bone chips.
“I told you!” he yelled.
And then we were past it. I’d barely had time to process what I saw. But we circled again. As we came back in range, Nat pulled his bow and nocked an arrow.
He’d tied a thin line of spidersilk and tendon tight above the arrow’s fletching. It dipped a thin shadow through the air, to his wingstraps. Nat had bound himself to the shaft.
I had no time to question the wisdom of this plan before he aimed and shot. Beautifully. Like a true hunter. The arrow threaded the eye of a bone cleat carved into the wall. Nat pulled on the rope, and the arrow flipped up. Locked tight to the eye. Then the rope pulled taut between Nat and the tower, and he was ripped from our forward flight. I looked under my wing and behind me to see him dangling from the fifteenth tier down on the Spire. That must have hurt.
When I’d left the wingfight and Mondarath, my ears had been full of roaring anger. I realized now how little thought I’d put to this, besides following Nat. That perhaps he’d planned for one, not two, to approach the Spire. Nat knew exactly how he would connect himself to the tower and had planned carefully. No such preparations were in place for me.
I needed to make the next circuit of the Spire on my own. I flew silent, eyes casting left, right, and down for a Singer, for a hint of skymouths or anything else. The cold winds whistled around me. Below, clouds and the towers began to glitter in the rising light of Allmoons. In a few moments, the glass beads I’d woven in my braids and along the edges of my wings would pick up the light and throw it like a beacon to anyone who happened to glance into the dark night sky.
This should have been a day of celebration and joy. Instead, rage cooled into sadness. I was alone in all the city, but for a single friend. Oldest friend. Wing-brother.
I completed the circuit and saw Nat clinging to the wall. He’d driven two pitons into the bone during my turn. He worked fast, for sure.
As I passed, he tossed me a line, and I missed it. Cursing, I found myself with a choice. I could circle a third time or turn and beat across the wind to the thrown rope.
The moon would be fully up before I flew around the Spire a third time. Too dangerous. I would turn. I would do this the hard way.
I dipped my left wing and banked a turn out of the breeze. The silk of my wings flapped noisily between the battens, then stilled. As I turned, I lost altitude. Now Nat was above me, and I neared the seventeenth tier downtower. There had been little enough rope before, and when he threw it again, I had to be higher. I strained to find a strong gust.
In the Spire’s wind shadow, there wasn’t enough unsullied air to lift me higher.
I pulled closer to the Spire, hoping for an updraft. That’s when I saw them. Another set of carvings similar to the ones Nat had found, but deeper. And a mark for a handgrip.
We’d been taught to fly to handgrips in emergencies or storms and had practiced clinging to Densira’s spurs, but I’d never done it without a net. Nor in the dark. I locked my wing harness with a thumb and withdrew my fingers from both sets of fine controls. My breathing came quicker, and my mouth felt dry as old bone. I crooked my arms in the winghooks and prepared to grab.
I was flying too fast when the grip came within reach. I crashed into the Spire and scrambled my hands along its sides, splintering shards from the wall into my palms as I clawed.
The wind lifted my wings and gave me a moment’s buoyancy. Then the gust strengthened and tried to tear me from the wall, just as my fingers sank through a hole with a deep grip in it. I grasped hard and hoped. Detached my other hand and grabbed double-handed, pulling my body parallel with the wall of the Spire. Clouds, it hurt. I splayed against the wall, powerless to do more.
Nat stifled a shout.
With my face pressed so close to the carvings, I could see holes within the symbols. Much like the chips had, but finger-sized. Slowly I peeled a few fingers from the grip and reached them to the holes.
Nat and Tobiat were right. The chips were a map. To what? To secret Spire gates? That would be worth plenty to the Singers. And to us, stranded on the side of the tower in the middle of the night.
“Can you climb up?” Nat called.
I shook my head. “Wait a minute, and I’ll either climb or peel off and try again.” I tried to slow my breathing as I peered into the darkness for clues about the quality of the wind this close to the Spire.
My foot began to slip, and I scrambled again for purchase. Mashed myself as close to the wall as I could, fingers still caught in the smaller holes. Something gave behind the pressure of my fingertips. I pressed again.
A grinding sound came from inside the wall. When I looked down, I could see a shadow growing on the pale tower; a distant panel of bone below me began to slide sideways.
As the gate opened, I heard other sounds, like water running down a wall.
Of course they had gates. Secret exits, for when flying from the top of the Spire wouldn’t do or they came under attack from a rogue tower.
“Nat!” He’d love this. Perhaps this was enough of a secret for him, for both of us. Then we could fly home. But to what kind of welcome?
There must be more such gates. If Naton’s chips marked them all, the Singers would be eager to have the skein back. Perhaps they would trade for it after all.
The grinding sound continued. I couldn’t see much, but I could feel movement in my fingers, and in the bone pressed against my chest. A rush of foul air brushed my cheek. My fingers tightened on the grip in the walls and in the holes.
Nat shouted again. He gestured wildly. His feet scrambled, his legs pumped and a wing jammed against the tower. He tried to climb back up the rope, panicking.
I hung on tight and looked around in time to catch the ripple and the tear in the sky that became a slick maw, blood-black, with teeth that glittered like stars, aimed right at me.
The monster pushed a pulse of raw wind before it. My wings filled with it and pinned me hard to the wall.
I could not breathe. I could not turn and scream—Nat was screaming enough for both of us.
From the corner of my eye, I saw motion in the darkness.
Shadows swooped past. A net flew through the air and landed with a slick sound in front of me. The breath of the skymouth stopped pushing at me. I could breathe again.
Gray-winged Singers flew above and below me. One made a high-pitched noise and pulled the skymouth away by the net.
Another threw a second net at me. The ropes, made of sticky spidersilk, smelled of herbs and muzz. The silk tightened around me, cracking wing battens, pressing its cloying scent at my nose and mouth. I could not see Nat.
“Where are you?” I yelled to him as I was pulled from the wall.
The net’s embrace wrapped me tight. I was lifted higher, bound in sick-sweet ropes. The stars spun. The moon shrank to a pinhole. Alone, I rose up to it and disappeared.
PART TWO
THE SPIRE
10
FORGOTTEN
Rough bone pressed against my palms, my face, my knees.
I was not falling. Not eaten. But I could not hear the wind.
My eyes were crusted shut. I rubbed the grit from them until they opened enough to reveal blurred shadows. I drew a breath full of filth and dried bone. When I coughed, a pale dust cloud rose cumulus beside my head, then settled, glittering, across my hand.
Tied around my wrist, a gray silk cord held three thick markers. They rattled together when I moved. Laws. New ones. Heavy ones.
I pushed hard against the floor with both hands, then raised my head and torso until the room spun and my heart beat a tattoo in my ears. When I could breathe again, when the pounding ebbed to a dull pulse, I eased onto my knees.
“Nat?”
My words echoed. No reply in the darkness.
My arms wouldn’t extend or lift from my sides. I touched left hand to right shoulder to find thick strands of spidersilk. The Singer’s net. I grasped it and lifted, intending to peel the sticky silk from my shoulders and back.
My hiss of pain echoed through the room as my skin stuck to the silk. Still, I did not pause. Skin, shards of battens, and wing fell away with the net, broken.
As the pile of discarded net and wing shifted with my movements, the floor rumbled and sighed. I had not caused that sound, but I knew what it was. Below me, the city spoke softly and then grew silent.
Once free of the net, I reached out and touched bone walls in every direction. My markers rattled. I tucked them under the cord to still them.
Now I could hear someone singing, faint notes rising and falling beyond the wall. But as my hands made a circuit of my prison, I discovered no doors, no openings. No way to reach the voice. No breeze here either. Only a rough wall that rose higher than I could stretch my fingers.
Then the darkness shifted. Broke. Far above my head, a small light guttered and held. Someone had set an oil lamp into the wall. The light struck the space in patches and, as my eyes steadied enough to trace it, the shadows of my prison acquired edge and gouge: carvings, everywhere.
On the walls, Singers fought gryphons in the carved clouds; they tore carved wings from a woman, they threw a flailing man from a carved tower.
I had no doubts now. I was trapped within the walls of the Spire.
The bone murals of the prison continued along the floor. I lifted my aching knee and studied a red imprint in my skin: a face carved mid-scream.
Above me in the growing glare of the lantern, a white arc appeared like a moon unfurling: crescent, then half, then full. A carved bone pail scraped against the wall as it was lowered on a rope. The pail dropped into my upstretched hands, and I felt the edges of words. More Laws. Bethalial, Trespass, Treason.
Nothing in this room was uncarved, unmarked, except me.
The pail slipped from my hands and clattered against the floor. It wobbled to a stop, and I crawled to it. Inside were a bladder sack and a dried bird’s gizzard. I unstoppered the sack and sipped. Water. It tasted like scourweed. I put the bird’s gizzard in my pocket.
I muttered my thanks. My voice was a rasp.
“You are welcome, Kirit Notower,” a voice said in response, startling me. Before I could respond, the bucket rose on its rope. The moonlight above my head shrank to a hairline crescent and then vanished.
I put my head on my knees, wrapped my arms around my shins, and wept until I ran dry.
Later, I took the gizzard from my pocket and looked at it. They were feeding me. If the Singers had wanted me dead, I would be.
When they lowered the bucket again, I tried to see beyond the light, to see the shapes of those above. I saw nothing, not even their hands. This time, the goosebladder held a weak broth; the bucket, a stone fruit.
“How long will you hold me here?” I shouted at the moon.
The voice responded slowly, “Until you hear. Until you understand.” Then the moon in the ceiling slid closed again. Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could see that it was not closed all the way.
They couldn’t leave me here forever. A corner of my pile of silk and netting already reeked of urine and foul. I’d pushed it as far from my bedding as I could.
I heard singing again. I heard The Rise echo down from above.
There was a way out. It was small and distant. And all I had to do to reach it was fly.
My broken wings mocked me silently from the floor.
I put my ear to a wall and heard the pulse of the Spire, the wind sweeping the walls, the bone thickening, the deeper sounds. Of the city beyond the Spire I could hear nothing.
What of Nat? Was he a prisoner within the Spire too? Or had he been thrown down? Worse? Was I truly alone?
I began shouting, hoping they would come to the moon-window again. “You can’t hold me here! My tower and my family—”
Would what? They had turned from me. Found me unlucky.
I tried once more. “My mother—”
Traded me away.
“You can’t hold me here! You cheated me of my wings, and you cannot hold me!”
I ached to see the horizon beyond the walls. To feel a breeze. See a sunrise. There was no way to tell how much time had passed except by the arrival of buckets.
The total enclosure made my heart pound against my ribs. To calm myself, I listed what I used to see from my quarters in Densira: clouds, birds on the wing, Mondarath, sometimes Viit if the weather was right. Banners. Green plants. Neighbors climbing ladders, crossing far-off bridges, carrying children nestled tight to their breasts as they flew short distances. Sky.
I had always been able to see the sky. There had always been a breeze laced with ice, or wet with rain, or hot with summer. There was no weather here. No sky.
The walls of my prison absorbed blows from my fists, cut my skin when I struck a sharp carving. I sank again to the floor. The walls surrounded me like an unforgiving second skin. When I woke, it was to the grinding sound of the panel above drawing back and another pail. This one contained another sackful of broth, with the gritty must of dirgeon. Those birds ate anything, and it showed in the taste of the meat. I was willing to eat like them at that moment.
The pail still rattled. A bone tool had been tucked beneath the sack, its sharp end wrapped in silk. A carving tool.
“What do you want?” I shouted to the hole above me, not expecting an answer. But then a shadowed head appeared in its halo.
“We keep the city safe,” said a voice. “We look for those who could do the same.”
My shoulders and legs ached. I turned my head from the light and stretched to see if I could touch both walls at once. Not quite.
“You don’t want me. I break Laws. Endanger my tower. My city.” I held up my wrist, shaking the markers to make them clatter and echo.
Now that my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, I could better read the markers: Bethalial, Trespass, Treason.
“You have indeed.” And the window closed entirely.
I was Kirit Notower. Lawsbreaker. Unlucky.
I had attacked the Spire. At Allmoons. I’d attracted a skymouth. My hand tightened around the carving tool, its silk wrapper. I had lost my friend.
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In the dim light, I unwound the silk from the carver’s tip. In the towers, we wrote message on bone. Dye was too valuable. Ink unavailable. The Singers, it seemed, had both. My eyes strained to read the marks on the fabric: Some believe you are more than your crimes. Some believe you can Rise. Are you worth saving?
I thought about the wingtest. About the way I’d flown. I’d not heard of Singers lifting Lawsmarks, ever. I thought about Wik, his insistence at Densira that I could help the city. Singers could do anything for the good of the city.
They wanted something from me. Perhaps I could make a trade. Convince them to lift my punishments. If I could reach them.
The carvings. At points, deep enough to allow a fingertip to jam into a crevice. Perhaps a bare toe. I pulled my silk foot wrappings off. My toes were soft and pallid in the dim light. My fingers found a place on the wall where someone—another prisoner?—had carved a series of birds in flight, circling upwards. Had they been able to carve the birds all the way to the top? If so, climbing them was better than waiting for release.
The deepest carvings had sharp edges, but my fingers still found purchase and I pulled myself up against the wall. The effort of climbing made the pads on my fingers throb. My knuckles cracked. My toes ached. I stopped, rested, then tried again, pressing my body close to the wall, pushing with my feet and calves until my leg muscles burned painfully. After the first few minutes, my fingers and toes had grown so numb, I could not shake them awake. I fell back to the carved bone floor. It was hopeless. A trick. I was never meant to leave this place.
I did not intend to do so, but I fell asleep again. I did not dream. I woke to find I’d spilled from my silk nest, kicked it aside, slept on the floor. My cheek pressed hard against a carving of the city. I rolled over and muffled a shriek of pain. My fingers had swelled and blistered. I stuck two of them in my mouth and sucked, whimpering. The taste of blood and dust from the room made me ill.
The city was silent now, the Spire too. I tried to guess what day it was—we were past Allmoons, but how far past?
With only the buckets to tell me, I had no sense of when I was. Perhaps it was evening. Perhaps Elna was already cooking dinner. Perhaps Ezarit had returned from another trade. I imagined the conversations, held to them tightly. What would Nat have been doing? And I? I would have been doing nothing, not until I could pass a wingtest without breaking the quiet.