by Kate Diamond
He followed Miris out to the yard and climbed aboard the Dragonfly. The Wind, invisible in the light but for a flutter of dust and pollen, brushed against him as he approached, sending a shiver down his neck. He knew almost nothing about how spirits thought or felt, but he could tell that Seres did not trust him.
Belest watched Miris where ney stood in communion with the Wind and felt small and pathetic. He had helped Terthe craft and sell the damned lamps for months. He had diverted Miris from nir intended path and a reunion with friends out of his own cowardice. And he had hidden himself away when those better prepared and braver than he had come to confront the traders and free the Stars.
If he could not prove himself worthy before Miris tired of hauling him around… what then? He would have to make a living wherever ney left him, with what few skills he had. Maybe some carpenter or smith would be willing to take on a too-old apprentice, or he could find a travelling merchant kinder than Terthe. Any sort of work would be better than returning home.
Miris traced one of the curving symbols carved into the ship’s mast and the cloudship lifted from the ground in a swirl of dust. Belest, silent, watched the inn and village and river shrink away beneath them.
◆◆◆
Carried by Seres’s breezes, they flew onwards, away from the river and the tightly-built towns along its curving banks, where people went about their business along streets lined with houses and shops and temples.
In the centerlands the villages were sparser, and in the distances between them lay farmers’ fields rich with growth and wide flat plains scattered with dark lakes like forgotten splashes of wine. The silvery line of an ancient stone road snaked over the land, cracked and overgrown but still visible. Such roads and ruins lay strewn across the centerlands, most of them utter mysteries that generations of questions had failed to solve. Who had built that road, and how many ages ago? Who would have travelled it when it was new, and where would they have visited? The builders, whoever they were, had left few records, and those that remained sparked fierce debate among scholars.
The only thing that unified the centerlands was their name. Between the River Kerden and Dawning Crest lay a patchwork of regions, distinct culturally and politically, which bickered like unruly sibs in good times but willingly shared food and shelter when the seasons turned harsh. Long ago, they had warred with each other back and forth for decades. Today, they merely argued, about everything imaginable and then some.
A traveller unaware of the long history of squabbles between the city-states could easily find themself in trouble. Asking for a Pyrchian ale in an Ormrelan tavern, for instance, would earn a stranger mockery and insults. The people of Larwen praised pastries from neighboring Raset but would not buy from Tilsan bakers. Tilsans, in turn, were generally regarded as well-educated and dignified by all but townspeople from Gashen, who sketched them as pompous fools in their comic papers.
“Miris?”
Lost in the near-meditative peace of flight, Miris only realized Beslest was addressing nem after the second hesitant sound. He had again positioned himself as far out of the way as he could manage on a small cloudship and had said nothing since they’d launched, and Miris realized guiltily that ney had nearly forgotten he was there.
“What is it?”
“Last night, did you…” Belest began. Miris glanced at him, for a moment fearing he suspected ney had asked after his past, and at a loss for how to explain the imposition. “Did you find out how they captured the Stars?”
Relieved, ney shook nir head. “No. It has something to do with cold… but I can’t imagine how. Or how they kept it cold all the way down from Dawning Crest. They kept them in that case.” Ney indicated the unassuming wooden chest.
“Terthe kept Stars in a box with those same carvings,” Belest said after a moment of study. “Can I look at it?”
Miris nodded approval; Belest knelt beside the chest and set to examining it with a care ney had not expected. Rather than throwing open the lid as Miris had assumed he would, he scrutinized the hinges and seal and broken lock with a craftsman’s eye and a careful, curious touch. Ney watched with interest as he ran his fingers over the pattern of knots and braids carved into the lid. Perhaps he could learn something ney had missed.
◆◆◆
“There’s a scuff in the carving,” Belest observed as his fingers dragged on the rough patch in smooth wood. He pushed a fingernail cautiously against it; the surface flaked, and the material under it gave way. “They tried to cover it with wax and paint,” he added, unable to keep a touch of derision from his voice at the inexpert repair.
He paused, thinking of the stains on Bissa’s hands. Could the damage to the pattern have weakened whatever force was holding the Stars dormant inside? They had remained inside lamps until the glass broke. Perhaps this was a similar mechanism?
At last he lifted the latch and slowly opened the lid, finding empty trays stacked inside. Again, like Terthe’s case, though nirs had been much smaller. The trays were made of thin metal, padded with felt or similar and notched to fit together without shifting. He could see no traces of the Stars that had been held imprisoned there.
He lifted a tray out, turned it over in his hands, and instantly recognized the angular glyphs engraved into the metal. On good days, Terthe had tasked him with cutting similar forms over and over into scraps of wood.
“This is Flamescript,” Belest said, certain of it.
“What?” Miris stepped across the deck and knelt beside him to see.
“I can’t read it, but I remember Terthe commanded nir Flames by-”
“Nobody commands spirits,” Miris interrupted. There was an edge to nir voice that chilled Belest; he ducked his head and cursed himself for his ignorance.
“And? Go on,” ney prompted. Belest bit his lip and continued, choosing his words carefully.
“Terthe… instructed nir Flames by throwing them rounds of wood carved with characters that looked like these.”
“And you don’t know what any of these mean?”
Belest looked away, desperately wishing he could offer anything more.
“I only learned a few. Ney wasn’t interested in teaching me anything more.” Useless, again. If only he had paid more attention… but he hadn’t wanted to pry, or push, and risk Terthe throwing him out or worse. Not that it had done him much good in the end.
Miris sighed. “At least we have something to look for now. Perhaps we can find a Flamesmith who’ll tell us.”
Ney copied the glyph onto a scrap of paper and folded it away into a pocket. Belest replaced the trays and latched the chest, thoughts dark and doubting. The sun rose higher in the sky, and Miris made them both tea again, as they crossed over a wide lake busy with flocks of birds, a caravan’s bright wagons and tents camped at its edge. Belest’s gaze returned again to the Star chest, and his thoughts to the Flamescript he could not read.
“I don’t understand,” he said when he could stay silent no longer. “Why would Flames help imprison other spirits? When Seres saw…” He glanced up at the spirit holding them aloft, recalling the Wind’s fury at the captured Stars, the splintered wood and shattered glass. From the look on nir face, Miris was remembering the same.
Ney shook nir head gently. “Spirits aren’t all the same. Even within an element you find individuals. They’re like people that way. But there are patterns associated with different types of spirit.”
“Patterns?”
“Most of what we know about spirits is in how they interact with mortals. If you go out to the eastern ocean, you’ll find pods of mers living alongside Waves.” Belest, who had never seen the ocean in his life, could only imagine the sight. He said nothing, only listened.
“Of the other spirits, Flames and Seeds are most often willing to work with mortals. Flames usually choose to assist smiths in exchange for a supply of fuel.”
Belest nodded. Terthe had often complained of the cost of keeping two Flames sated, and of the burns
they inflicted when displeased. He had earned no few of those burns himself, assisting with the crafting of common glass or feeding the fire when it had burned too low.
Miris continued. “Seeds… I never learned a great deal about them. There was a man in my home village who grew flowers with the help of earth spirits. He always said they liked to surprise people. I’m not sure how true that is, but I think it was at least true for him. And Winds…” Ney watched Seres as ney spoke, a gentle smile coming to nir lips. “Nobody truly knows how or why they decide to let us fly with them. But they do, and we are grateful for it.”
There was quiet, then, for a time, as Belest watched the Wind drifting above them and the land rolling past below. At last Belest found the courage to ask: “And Stars?”
“Humans know very little about Stars,” Miris admitted after a long slow moment, “and if the other races know more, they’re not sharing. We think they watch mortals, sometimes. Some Kejan clans worship them. But as far as I know, a Star has never allied with or even spoken to a mortal.”
They had little reason to, Belest thought bitterly. Miris made as if to say more, then paused, staring off at something in the distance; Belest followed nir gaze. There, coming towards them from the east, was another cloudship. As it drew closer Belest could see that it was of a slightly different construction than the Dragonfly: thinner, and it carried no boxes on its deck. The sail, though, was much the same, the same shape and pale shimmery fabric, though the glyph was different.
“Arden!” Miris called out to the ship drifting towards them. “Minwe!”
The approaching Wind reached them first, gusting out ahead of the cloudship to meet Seres, and for a moment Belest could see the spirits dancing together above their ships in a tangle of breezes.
Soon the cloudship was close enough for its flier, a tall man with curling hair and warm brown skin, to leap across the gap between their ships and land on the Dragonfly’s deck.
“Be careful!” Miris scolded.
“Don’t worry about me, Minwe won’t let me fall,” the flier said, and pulled Miris into a tight embrace. “It’s been long seasons since I saw you last, Miris! And pleasant ones, I hope?”
“Far too long. Last I saw you, you were heading across the sea towards Corum and Wytar.”
“And so I did, and stayed to study with the Chefir too.”
Belest kept back from the reunion, but he could not remain beneath notice for long. Soon enough Miris turned to him and introduced the newcomer.
“Belest, this is Arden fin-Minwe, of the Brightblade. He’s a healer.”
“And who’s this?” Arden, still grinning, peered at Belest. “An apprentice already? Retiring so young, Miris?”
“He’s not my apprentice.”
“Ah, a lover, then?” Arden guessed, a suggestive gleam in his eye.
“A temporary assistant, Arden,” Miris said, unamused. “Out of necessity.”
“And how did that happen, I wonder?”
The joy faded from Miris’s voice. “I ran into trouble at Summertooth.”
Arden’s expression at last turned serious as in very few words, Miris explained what they had discovered about the Stars at Summertooth and then at Northford. Ney brushed lightly over Belest’s role in the matter, for which he was deeply grateful.
“I’ve never heard anything of the like,” Arden said when ney was finished, shaking his head in dismay. “Some of those merchants must know what they’re buying. And there’s no doubt more than just lamps on the market, I’ll bet you that.”
“If only we knew how long the traders have been operating…” Miris cast Belest a questioning look that he was again helpless to answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The trader we met, she praised Terthe for being ‘among the first to practice a new art.’ I assumed that was simply sweet talk, trader’s talk.” He winced, fearing he had offended Miris with his choice of words, but ney only nodded in thought.
“A new art…” Arden looked thoughtful. “I landed in Rysen two, no, three days ago. I assisted with a birth in the lower district. Poor woman had the misfortune of being due during Gods’ Week, and the local midwife was in seclusion at the temple. It all went well, the child was healthy, but I remember her brother saying something about a Tilsan merchant selling blessed pendants, and how he wished he had one for the infant.”
“Flameforged?” Miris asked.
Arden shook his head. “They had a Gods-eye hanging in the bedroom, Flameforged copper. He would have recognized Flamework. Whatever he saw, it was something entirely new.”
Expression grim, Miris nodded. “We’re not far from Tilsa,” ney said. “We’ll go there. Will you join us?”
“Gladly.” Arden looked to Minwe, signaled the Wind with a touch of fingers to one of the glyphs on his arms. “I wouldn’t miss an excuse to visit. Have you ever seen the city, Belest?”
Belest, startled to be addressed, shook his head. So many places these fliers knew, places he had never been and rarely thought of. Kela and her friends had often sought Tilsan dresses, but that was all Belest knew of the city.
“It’s beautiful. You’ll see.”
Arden stayed with them on the Dragonfly as they flew; Minwe carried the Brightblade a few lengths behind. He settled himself on a crate and with very little prompting from Miris, launched into the tale of his journey across the sea to the eastern continent Irenset, his adventures in the port city of Corum, and the half-year he had spent in the Wytari capital Mafenra with the Chefir healer-masters and their students.
“I arrived in Corum in late summer. They call it the oldest city in the known world. It’s twice as large as Tanhar, and all built into the red cliffs above the docks…” He continued in that vein, telling of artisans’ busy workshops, of the temples of local gods carved with their symbols and ringing with their songs, of meals of fresh-caught fish dressed in unfamiliar herbs, of watching the ships from the city’s highest point.
“It’s a little difficult for foreigners to navigate, they say, but the Chefir manage it fine even on four legs, so I suppose it’s just a matter of practice.” Arden shrugged.
“Four legs?” Belest asked, before he could stop himself. “How?”
Arden smiled. “I wondered when you were going to talk. How to explain… They’re shaped something like deer, I suppose,” he said. “Long thin legs, hooves, short tails. And they’ve got a chest and arms and head on top of that, and all of it covered in fur. Six limbs are a lot to take care of. Though of course to them, us two-legged folk seem hopelessly lacking.” He laughed. “Well, perhaps not. Corum’s been a multicultural city since the dawn of time, and Chefir healers have been revered for nearly as long. Their medical knowledge is incredible, especially in the regions around the universities.”
The rest of his recounting concerned the masters and students he had met in those universities and the cases he had seen, occasionally veering into lurid details of various surgical techniques, which he described with no small amount of fascination until Miris at last turned him gently towards less gruesome topics. There were plenty of those to be found, at least, from harvest festivals to the sports the students played in snowy fields after lessons. Minwe too had enjoyed the latter, raising swirls of snowflakes to delight the players.
“Some of them had never seen a human before. It’s less common further inland. I suppose I looked rather naked next to all that fur, because after the first heavy snow, I woke to find a basket of knit hats and scarves by my bed, all from my hosts. They wouldn’t let me out of the house unless I was wearing at least two or three.”
The warmth in his voice at the memory was undeniable, and Belest once again felt a pang of longing for all the wonders a cloudship flier saw, the people they met, the good they did. For now, though, he would be content with the stories, and grateful for it.
The Terraced City
The city of Tilsa came slowly into view, first only as a grey blur barely visible on the horizon, but as they drew
closer the shape of the outer wall became clear, and then the towers, and then the levels of greenery between them. The abundance of hardy stone provided by nearby quarries had enabled the city’s builders to construct their settlement in shrinking layers of honeycomb-shaped pavilions, so that the roofs of one section became walkways and gardens and marketplaces for those above. Tilsans measured space by these structures - a worker of little earnings might claim a one- or two-pavilion dwelling, while a wealthy family’s home might comprise a dozen or more across several levels. Wide ramps and carved ladders joined the levels, allowing for easy traffic by both pedestrians and carts. Channels set into the walls brought rainwater down from basins at the top to feed fountains and ponds, and flowering vines were encouraged on every available surface.
This striking city was known not only for its architecture and gardens but also for art and fashion. Clothing and hairstyles worn in Tilsan shops and streets set the style for the entire region. Painters and sculptors came to Tilsa to learn from its masters, scholars to research in its libraries. Outsiders often claimed that the city was large enough and insular enough that one born in its upper levels could easily go their entire life without ever touching the ground. While this might certainly be true for some, even those who never left the city’s walls were rarely ignorant of the outside world, not with that world coming every day through their gates.
The governor of Tilsa, Nira deb-Handin, saw Windsworn traders as little better than jumped-up peddlers. Her opinion, though, did nothing to dissuade the city’s residents from their desire for tales and trinkets from far-off lands.
Seres and Minwe brought their cloudships down to land in a second-level garden just within the southeast wall, an island of four pavilions overlooking a weaver’s workshop. The gate-guards stationed on the wall signaled them with flags as they passed over and met them where they landed. The guards, a pair of women wearing the city’s crest on their uniforms, were quickly satisfied with Miris’s and Arden’s explanation of their business - an explanation that conveniently left out any hint of the Stars they were seeking - but their commander, a stern-faced third, joined them only a few minutes later, concerned that the arrival of two cloudships together could only herald important news, good or bad, from neighboring lands.