Updraft

by Fran Wilde

  “Something is happening,” Wik said.

  “Not another Conclave?” Not so soon.

  “I will find out. Will try to slow it, if so.”

  Before I could say anything in response, Wik leapt from the tower. I was left to address the biggest hurdle of returning to the Spire: wings. Sellis’s knife had ripped mine, and my fall had made it worse. Four of us, trapped on Lith, with one working wing among us.

  And a Singer who had so far kept secrets from both tower and Spire.

  I looked about the abandoned balcony, then crawled back through the first passage, rummaging through the discarded refuse of Lith.

  I would find a way to turn one wing into two. I would figure out how to get into the Spire without being seen.

  Then I would make the Spire tell its secrets to the city.

  25

  TRUTH

  As the day warmed, I descended through Lith’s broken tiers with increasing desperation.

  Tobiat brought more strong silk rope with him, and he insisted on joining me while I picked through the tower. I couldn’t stop him. Nor could I keep him quiet. I struggled to focus. He smacked his gums together and rambled.

  He hummed an old tune. Sometimes sang a verse. I listened, despite myself. This was another song long fallen from the city’s memory. More than that, I noticed that when he sang, Tobiat’s speech made more sense. He could remember longer sentences.

  When Tobiat said, “Lith song,” I smiled, even as I searched.

  “I don’t remember much of that one,” I said. I expected he wouldn’t either.

  “Many bridges ran to Lith,” he sang, the legend clear and true. My jaw dropped. “They traded easy and made things beautiful.”

  Now Tobiat did not skip or mumble. He sounded whole when he sang. His memory intact. I listened harder. I’d never thought to ask him to sing.

  But they grew jealous of the Spire,

  tried to raise their tower higher, without Singers’ help, nor Spire’s blessing.

  Men found Lith who wished to fight.

  They made it grow,

  they made it strong.

  They angered many, Lith cracked and died.

  Singers helped them flee, made survivors beg shelter. Plenty perished.

  No one came to sing their dead.

  City punishes those who forget.

  Tobiat’s song ended. Amazement washed over me, along with new appreciation for Tobiat. Then he shouted, “Roar!” as the city rumbled again.

  I shuddered and sped up my search efforts. On one tier, we found a crafter’s studio, the floor broken and treacherous. A spine wall had caved in, and the bones scattered across the floor were big enough to be human.

  If any of this tier’s residents had survived, they’d left everything behind when they went. Tools had blown against the central core and lay covered with dust: needles and saws and nails. Metal. Things I’d seen in Rumul’s chambers, in the wingmaker’s studio, and nowhere else. No one had risked coming back to Lith to salvage, even though the need was great. I gathered what I wanted: needles—even a metal one—awls, bone battens from a pile.

  “Rise.” Tobiat held up a carved bone panel. It was gray with dust, but much lighter than the darkened tower. He cleaned it with a corner of his ruined robe.

  The panel was beautiful. The carving crisp and confident. Cleaner even than the carving in the Spire. Our bone tools could not compete with the artistry. The sharp wings, the flowing hair of the fliers.

  We’d lost so much.

  “Oh,” I said. “The clouds.”

  The swirling cuts that ridged the panel’s surface could be nothing but clouds. In every direction. Even thinking about clouds all around made me squirm. The panel must have come from the Rise. Part of our history.

  At the center of the bone tablet, a woman with a marked face lifted a wingless citizen away from a hunting bird. A Singer saving someone. Not the whole city. One person.

  This was almost too humble for the Singers. Most often, their carvings showed Singers lifting the towers themselves, filled with people. My hand, which had carved this very scene in the council tier as a novice, flexed at the memory.

  We’d lost so much. We’d lost ourselves.

  “The towers sing one version of The Rise, and the Singers know another,” I said.

  Tobiat nodded. “Secrets.”

  “But what if that’s wrong? What if secrets are destroying the city?” I traced the carving with a finger. Tucked it into my robe.

  “Fear Singers. Sing. Fear.”

  Sure. The towers refrained from fighting because they were afraid of the Singers. I could see that. But Tobiat shook his head, frustrated. That wasn’t what he’d meant. “Do you mean to say that the Singers are afraid?”

  A bob of the head. A cackle.

  “They’re part of the city, not something separate,” I murmured. “We have forgotten.”

  “Maybe, maybe,” said Tobiat. He singsonged, “City punishes those who forget.”

  What else had we forgotten? How much more could the city lose if Rumul remained unchecked?

  We returned to the hideout, Tobiat munching on some gristle he’d pulled from a pocket. I turned over thoughts in my mind, frustrated from the search.

  How many generations ago had Lith fallen? Recently enough to haunt the city. How could we keep tragedy from happening again without resorting to Singer methods? Were the stories and songs true? How would I fly away from here in time to meet Wik?

  I had one good wing, a needle and awl. Battens.

  I spotted Elna’s satchel on the floor and remembered how heavy it had felt. I looked inside. Under the herbs she’d carried when Wik had flown with her, and her sewing box, she’d tucked the silk and the furled, broken wings from the Spire, the ones I’d presented to her.

  I began to hum The Rise, softly. Soon, Elna, Nat, and Tobiat fell asleep around me, heads nestled on arms, legs tossed by dreams. Nat snored.

  I pulled the silk and wings from Elna’s bag, took a piece of dried goose from our stores, then crawled from the cell and retraced my path until I found my wing and its broken mate. Lifting them, I could see that the tear in the right wing was devastating. There was no repairing the shredded silk, unless I could summon Liras Viit to this broken tower. But I had Nat’s ceremonial wings. One was less damaged than the other.

  I could patch his better wing with mine, stitch the stress points and make them whole. I ripped out the seams and dissected his broken wing, pulling the silk from the battens. My fingers lingered on the torn silk, imagining Nat’s wings as they shredded in the Gyre.

  Using the tools Tobiat and I had found and Elna’s kit, I patched myself new wings with the silk of both his wings and mine.

  I hid what remained, but did not throw it over the edge. Nat was not strong enough to come after me, not yet. He’d want to fly before he was ready. Too soon.

  A rustle in the pile of silk and battens I’d pushed into a corner made me jump. A bulge moved. My skin prickled with fear. Perhaps I should have thrown it over.

  When I peeled back the silk, I saw nothing. Carefully, I put my hand out. I heard a cheeping sound and saw my dried-goose dinner disappear into an invisible mouth.

  The little skymouth. I shuddered, despite myself. A stowaway, and a thief.

  No. It was a garbage eater. Perhaps these littlemouths helped the city too.

  I carefully laid the silk back over the creature and let it eat undisturbed. Began to hum The Rise again.

  I pressed the seams on my wings with the heel of my palm. Tugged at them. They seemed solid. Solid enough to get me to the Spire, at least.

  A gust of wind caught the wing’s edge and lifted it. I pulled the straps over my shoulders, tightened them against my aching muscles. No one else to help me. My fingers brushed the lenses’ cold metal. I thought of my father, of Ezarit. Of the bargains they’d made.

  I imagined them fighting in the Gyre. Imagined Civik falling, his body breaking. My mother, wounded, a
knife cut to her chest. Saw again Terrin’s fall. The young woman who’d challenged Sellis. Nat. Heard the wind in the Gyre, felt the heat from the skymouth’s maw.

  My humming had become a keen. I bit it back.

  At a scuffling sound from the tunnel, I turned, prepared to face Tobiat. But Nat pulled himself through, lowering himself to a sitting position against the wall. Elna followed.

  “You’re going,” Nat said, panting.

  “Yes. Right now.” I looked at him, at the wounds I’d caused. Looked at the worry on Elna’s face. I might not have another chance to say it. “I am sorry I fought you.”

  He frowned. “I fought you too. But you’re right, what you said before. I made you a Singer. It wasn’t exactly how we’d planned it.”

  I could feel my face flush with anger. They’d made a plan but hadn’t figured out a way to share it with me. “I thought you died! I thought I killed you!”

  Nat held his hands up. “I’m not fighting you now.” His voice was still tired, and resigned. “Besides, someone from the towers needed to try and fight. Someone needed to fight.”

  I took a deep breath and blew my anger away. He was misguided, headstrong, and more than a little right.

  “Someone will fight. Me. Once I find Ezarit,” I said, squeezing his hands. “You heal.”

  I had to fly. Now. I couldn’t undo what had happened. But I could try to keep it from getting worse. I lifted the lenses. Blew in them to keep the glass from fogging.

  Elna coughed. “Hurry,” she said. “The Singers will be out again at dark.”

  Her words reminded me that I’d made a bargain too, with Rumul, so long ago. Your Laws, and those of your mother.

  Trapped here on Lith, I had forgotten the full consequences of my betrayal.

  Ezarit. I fought to keep my hands from shaking. I had to find her before I went to the Spire. I had to make her come to Lith, to hide. If I flew fast enough, I might reach her before Rumul’s people did.

  I tightened the last strap as much as I could.

  “What if Ezarit won’t listen?” The sadness in my voice surprised me. Ezarit had always done things her own way.

  “She fought to keep the Singers from knowing about you; she tried to find a place in a tower that had more power in the city; one that could protect the two of you better than Densira. But Grigrit required an apprentice in order to consider it. She’ll listen.”

  I understood a little better now. The bargain she’d made with Doran Grigrit. Her desperation after the wingfight. “She should have told me.”

  Elna nodded. “We both should have told you. And each other. I thought my silence would buy your lives.”

  The sun began to sink below the clouds, turning the sky pink and red.

  Silence. Tradition. Secrets. I’d thought I was keeping Elna and Ezarit safe too. Now we were stranded on Lith. Now I had to hurry.

  I stood and tightened my other strap, then stepped through the footsling, ready to fly. The sun was setting as I checked the wind at the balcony, low on the city’s darkest tower. What Elna and Naton had sacrificed for, and Ezarit, and Nat too, I needed to finish. As soon as Ezarit was safe.

  I unfurled my new wings, my lopsided, mismatched pair that was everything I was at the moment: stitched together pieces of my friends and family.

  As I leapt from our hiding place on Lith, they watched me go. I stuttered in the breeze until I learned to balance on the unmatched, patched wings. If I were attacked, I would not survive it.

  The patchwork wings wobbled. My lenses swung on their strap and banged against my collarbone. I reached carefully to still them and my right wing dipped precariously. I fought to right it, twisting my arm up, just as a small tentacle wrapped around my wrist.

  “Bone and blood,” I whispered, more startled at the touch than anything. The littlemouth had stowed away with me.

  The tiny creature worked its way up my arm and clung to my shoulder. I slipped my hand back into the grip on my right wing. My path straightened immediately, but I still fought for altitude. My neck prickled as the tentacles felt their way forward, dragging the small sack of the skymouth’s body behind it. Its hide was rough and dry, not wet like its bigger, fiercer cousins.

  The creature pulled itself over to my left shoulder, which was higher ground, I supposed, since the right one kept dipping as I fought to control my new wings. As it settled there, the slight weight change steadied me. The wings soared better. They lifted me, finally, to the clearer air.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to the tiny monster hugging my left arm, my shoulder, and my back. “Enjoy the ride.”

  I began to hum again, softly.

  The towers rose over me, tinted blue-violet and blackberry hues by the setting sun. At this level, only a few scavengers might have seen me by mistake, but soon I’d rise to a level that didn’t have such downdrafts. It would be safer, but if a Singer—or someone loyal to them—saw me there, I would never reach my mother in time to warn her, nor the Spire in time to challenge Rumul before they threw me down.

  I would simply disappear. Like Naton and so many others.

  Densira and the edge of the city drew close. I found an updraft and circled gently with it, aiming higher. A dark shape passed above me. Two Singers, flying wing to wing.

  I dodged around the tower, taking extra time to circle Densira and avoid them.

  When I emerged from the other side, the Singers were leaping from a balcony, carrying a burdened net between them. The person in the net struggled.

  My mother’s voice drifted down the many tiers to my sensitive ears. I was too late.

  26

  REVOLT

  Ezarit shouted at the Singers who carried her away from her tower and towards the Spire. She cursed them, then tried to bribe them. She was still negotiating. But the Singers ignored her.

  I tried to climb faster, but my wings would not permit it. I had no weapon to use against the Singers. And my mother wore no wings. My attack would doom her if they chose to let the net fall.

  The Singers who bore my mother to the Spire faded quickly into the distance. The city’s towers turned to shadow and darkness.

  I stumbled along in the twilight air, frustration filling my eyes. Freezing on my cheeks. I kept flying. I could not fail in my goals.

  * * *

  Even the long days before Allsuns had moments of darkness. The last of the sunset’s colors disappeared below the clouds. Oil lanterns flickered in the nearby towers as people drew close with their families.

  I hummed quietly, hearing the city as well as seeing it for a short time. The darkness thickened, and I heard the Spire ahead of me.

  As my echoes struck the Spire’s solid-seeming walls, they revealed hidden hollows and panels. I glided close to the one I needed, the access gate closest to the pens. I pulled my fingers from a wing grip and flexed them.

  * * *

  In the dark, I clung to the Spire’s side, a mottled shadow against the bone-white wall. Wik waited for me inside, and Civik, but it was up to me to break in without being caught. Above, Nightwings launched from the Spire and flew into the city. They did not see me.

  I had to get inside the Spire, fast.

  I traced my fingers along the wall until I found the pressure points that opened the gate from outside. One stuck, then depressed. I heard the sound of a panel rolling back. This was a small gate. I furled my wings before pulling my upper body through.

  I entered the Spire sideways, on my belly, near an empty alcove in the windbeaters’ tiers. I heard heavy snoring nearby and cinched my footstrap to keep it from clattering against the floor and waking my neighbor.

  Hidden on the windbeaters’ tier, I waited and tried to think how to find Wik or Civik. On the tier’s far side, I saw a small shadow work its way past a moonlit patch. I held my breath and sank back against the alcove wall. Hoped.

  When Moc passed by on silk-soft feet, I reached out and grabbed his robe.

  He bit back a screech. “I was looking for
you! Wik said you would come back.”

  “I need your help. And Civik’s.” We kept our voices low.

  Moc caught sight of my lenses, still hanging round my neck. “He gave them back to you. Windbeaters don’t do that.”

  “Perhaps he’s something more than a scheming windbeater, Moc. He might want things to change too. Ask him.”

  Moc slunk off in the direction of Civik’s alcove, and soon both returned. Parted ways as Moc climbed from the tier to find Wik. Hurry, Moc.

  Civik tapped my hand with a finger. “Council’s already met to hear from Sellis about your interference. Rumor is you’re cloudbound.”

  “I’m not cloudbound yet. But they were going to hurt Elna.”

  Civik bobbed his head and shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe Wik would have diverted them.”

  “People still would have died. We have enough troubles without Rumul making more.”

  He frowned. “He’s still got too many on his side. No one wants to see more towers fall. No one wants war. Our plan is to work slowly.” I could see his face as the brief moonrise brushed our side of the tier. He looked afraid, and very old. My heart sank.

  “You sent me these,” I said, holding his hand to the lenses. “Why?”

  “They’re yours now. Not mine. I can’t do anything with them.” His fingers traced the lenses’ edge. Then one finger touched my nose. Hovered away. Then his hands covered my face. Softly, he used his fingers to see me.

  I held still, hoping Wik would come soon. I’d never talked to Civik alone. When he didn’t move his hands from my face, I stepped back and caught his fingers in mine.

  “It is time to do more,” I said, squeezing his hands. “I need you to get windbeaters who share your views out to the Gyre at dawn.”

  He nodded. “I can do that. They know what’s possible now that we have Naton’s chips. We looked at the holes he drilled in the walls. The weak points he created but never had the chance to finish. But Rumul still has influence down here. We have to be cautious.” Civik hesitated, caught between hope and doubt.

  At the sound of footsteps tripled by a bone cane and the swish of robes on the passage outside the alcove, we both fell silent. We barely breathed until the noises passed. Where was Wik?