by IGMS
"It won't be long," she said. "Last migration through the northwest quadrant lasted one day."
Our quadrant had been spared for my seventeen years. Many in the city would say our luck had held far too long while others suffered. Still, my father had left to make a trade during a migration and did not return. Ezarit took his trade routes as soon as I was old enough to leave with Elna.
"How can you be sure?" I asked.
Elna patted my shoulder, and I jumped. "All will be well, Kirit. Your mother helps the city."
"And," Ezarit said, "if I am successful, we will have more good fortune to celebrate."
I saw the gleam in her eye. She thought of the towers in the west, the wealthier quadrants. Densira had scorned us as unlucky after my father disappeared, family and neighbors both. The aunts scorned her no longer, as they enjoyed the benefits of her success. Even last night, neighbors had badgered Ezarit to carry trade parcels for them to the west. She'd agreed, showing respect for family and tower. Now she smiled. "Perhaps we won't be Ezarit and Kirit Densira for long."
A third guard clattered to a landing on the balcony, and Ezarit signaled she was ready. The tower marks on the guards' wings were from Naza. Out of the migration path; known for good hunters with sharp eyes. No wonder Nat stared at them as if he would trade places in a heartbeat.
As Ezarit's words sank in, he frowned. "What's wrong with Densira?"
"Nothing's wrong with Densira," Elna said, reaching around Ezarit to ruffle Nat's hair. She turned her eyes to the balcony, squinting. "Especially since Ezarit has made this blessed tower two tiers higher."
Nat sniffed, loudly. "This tier's pretty nice, even if it reeks of brand-new."
My face grew warm. The tier did smell of newly grown bone. The central core was still damp to the touch.
Still, I held my chin high and moved to my mother's side.
Not that long ago, Nat and I had been inseparable. Practically wing-siblings. Elna was my second mother. My mother, Nat's hero. We'd taken first flights together. Practiced rolls and glides. Sung together, memorizing the towers, all the Laws. Since our move, I'd seen him practicing with other flightmates. Dojha with her superb dives. Sidra, who had the perfect voice for Laws and already wore glorious, brand-new wings. Whose father, the tower councilman, had called my mother a liar more than once after we moved uptower, above their tier.
I swallowed hard. Nat, Elna, and I would be together in my still-new home until Ezarit returned. Like old times, almost.
In the air beyond the balcony, a fourth figure appeared. He glided a waiting circle. Wings shimmered dove gray. Bands of blue at the tips. A Singer.
A moment of the old childhood fear struck me, and I saw Nat pale as well. Singers sometimes took young tower children to the Spire. It was a great honor. But the children who went didn't return until they were grown. And when they came back, it was as gray-robed strangers, scarred and tattooed and sworn to protect the city.
The guards seemed to relax. The green-winged guard nudged his nearest companion, "Heard tell no Singer's ever been attacked by a skymouth." The other guards murmured agreement. One cracked his knuckles. Our Magister for flight and Laws had said the same thing. No one ever said whether those who flew with Singers had the same luck, but the guards seemed to think so.
I hoped it was true.
Ezarit signaled to the guards, who assembled in the air near the Singer. She smiled at Elna and hugged her. "Glad you are here."
"Be careful, Ezarit," Elna whispered back. "Speed to your wings."
Ezarit winked at Nat, then looked out at the sky. She nodded to the Singer. Ready. She gave me a fierce hug and a kiss. "Stay safe, Kirit."
Then she pushed the shutters wide, unfurled her wings, and leapt from the balcony into the circle of guards waiting for her with bows drawn.
The Singer broke from their formation first, dipping low behind Wirra. I watched from the threshold between our quarters and the balcony until the rest were motes against the otherwise empty sky. Their flight turned west, and disappeared around Densira's broad curve.
For the moment, even Mondarath was still.
Nat moved to pull the shutters closed, but I blocked the way. I wanted to keep watching the sky.
"Kirit, it's Laws," he said, yanking my sleeve. I jerked my arm from his fingers and stepped farther onto the balcony.
"You go inside," I said to the sky. I heard the shutter slam behind me. I'd broken my promise and was going against Laws, but I felt certain that if I took my eyes off the sky, something would happen to Ezarit and her guards.
We'd seen signs of the skymouth migration two days ago. House birds had molted. Silk spiders hid their young. Densira prepared. Watchmen sent black-feathered kaviks to all the tiers. They cackled and shat on the balconies while families read the bone chips they carried.
Attempting to postpone her flight, Ezarit had sent a whipperling to her trading partners in the south and west. They'd replied quickly, "We are not in the migration path." "We can sell our honey elsewhere." There would be none left to mix with Mondarath's herbs for the southeast's medicines.
She made ready. Would not listen to arguments. Sent for Elna early, then helped me strip the balcony.
Mondarath, unlike its neighbors, paid little mind to preparations. The skymouth migration hadn't passed our way for years, they'd said. They didn't take their fruit in. They left their clotheslines and the red banners for Allmoons flapping.
Around me now, our garden was reduced to branches and leaves. Over the low bone outcrop that marked Aunt Bisset's balcony, I saw a glimmer. A bored cousin with a scope, probably. The wind took my hair and tugged the loose tendrils. I leaned out to catch one more glimpse of Ezarit as she passed beyond the tower's curve.
The noise from Mondarath had eased, and the balconies were empty on the towers all around us. I felt both entirely alone and as if the eyes of the city were on me.
I lifted my chin and smiled, letting everyone behind their shutters know I wasn't afraid, when they were. I panned with our scope, searching the sky. A watchman. A guardian.
And I saw it. It tore at my aunt's gnarled trees, then shook loose the ladder down to Nat's. It came straight at me fast and sure: a red rip in the sky, sharp beak edges toothed with ridge upon ridge of glass teeth. Limbs flowed forward like thick tongues.
I dropped the scope.
The mouth opened wider, full of stench and blood.
I felt the rush of air and heard the beat of surging wings, and I screamed. It was a child's scream, not a woman's. I knew I would die in that moment, with tears staining my tunic and that scream soiling my mouth. I heard the bone horns of our tower's watch sound the alarm: We were unlucky once more.
My scream expanded, tore at my throat, my teeth.
The skymouth stopped in its tracks. It hovered there, red and gaping. I saw the glittering teeth and, for a moment, its eyes, large and side-set to let its mouth open even wider. Its breath huffed thick and foul across my face, but it didn't cross the last distance between us. My heart had stopped with fear, but the scream kept on. It spilled from me, softening. As the scream died, the skymouth seemed to move again.
So I hauled in a deep breath through my nose, like we were taught to sing for Allmoons, and I kept screaming.
The skymouth backed up. It closed its jaws. It disappeared into the sky, and soon I saw a distant ripple, headed away from the city.
I tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in my chest and strangled me. Then my eyes betrayed me. Darkness overtook the edges of my vision, and white, wavy lines cut across everything I saw. The hard slats of the shutters counted the bones of my spine as I slid down and came to rest on the balcony floor.
My breathing was too loud in my ears. It roared.
Clouds. I'd shouted down a skymouth and would still die blue-lipped outside my own home? I did not want to die.
Behind me, Nat battered at the shutters. He couldn't open them, I realized groggily, because my body blocked the door.
Cold crept up on me. My fingers prickled, then numbed. I fought my eyelids, but they won, falling closed against the blur that my vision had become.
I thought for a moment I was flying with my mother, far beyond the city. Everything was so blue.
Hands slid under my back and legs. Someone lifted me. The shutters squealed open.
Dishes swept from our table hit the floor and rolled. Lips pressed warm against mine, catching my frozen breath. The rhythm of in and out came back. I heard my name.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the Singer's gray robes first, then the silver lines of his tattoos. His green eyes. The dark hairs in his hawk nose. Behind him, Elna wept and whispered, "On your wings, Singer. Mercy on your wings."
He straightened and turned from me. I heard his voice for the first time, stern and deep, telling Elna, "This is a Singer concern. You will not interfere."
The Topaz Marquise
by Fran Wilde
* * *
(This story first appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, July 2014)
The man waiting outside my studio three days before the new year was dark with travel, his cloak ragged and mud-stained. The gray hollows around his eyes and beneath his cheekbones proclaimed his business. Even so, I feared I would be robbed before our exchange ended.
"What are you selling?" I held the heavy brass key in my hand like a weapon, refusing to unlock the studio door. Beyond the thin wooden barrier, a rough amethyst the size and texture of a shelled walnut waited on my cutting tray to be improved. The man before me could never enter that room.
"A gem," he said. His accent put a flat country note to the 'e.' A fleck of spit remained on his lip, white foam against cracked red flesh. "From the Valley."
I held out my free hand. The wretched man placed into it a large wad of linen. Still, I doubted his claim. Valley gems were plentiful in rumor and rare in reality. A good jeweler learned to trace a gem's origin before he made a purchase he couldn't profit from later. I owned my shop and the studio above it, in a tower within the city walls. I wasn't about to make a bad buy.
I peeled the linen back, the gray of its outer layer revealing a white underside. Within the nest of fabric lay a large yellow topaz, cut in the old style.
"My dear man," I said. "This is no Valley gem. It's neither ruby nor sapphire, diamond, nor emerald. This is topaz, or citrine. And, worse, it doesn't sing. I'm told Valley gems sing." But I kept hold of the stone, and the man noticed.
"Two gold graeli," he said. "The topaz will sing for the right jeweler."
I flipped my hand over, fingers curled around the topaz and its wrapping. Made as if to hand it back to him. "Not interested." I reached the brass key towards my studio door.
"Thirty silver." His voice broke.
"I will give you twenty," I said. The man was desperate. I was certain I could cut the old topaz into three more popular shapes and sell each for that much, or more.
My day was starting off fine, and when Lise, my assistant, arrived, it would get better still. I pocketed the topaz and drew a purse from my sleeve. The man's fingers shook the coins together as I counted them out.
What a marvelous stone. I imagined it transformed to a brooch or a ring. A pair of drop earrings. Glittering in the perfect setting: bezel or clutch, wrap or pin . . .
The man was staring at me, as if awaiting a response.
"You shouldn't linger," I said quickly and waved him away. "The local sheriff comes around often."
As the man shuffled down the narrow stairs to the street outside my shop, I unlocked the studio, closed the door carefully behind me, then hurried to my workbench.
By the time Lise arrived, I had the gem cleaned of the wanderer's grime. She opened the door with a clatter, her own key swinging from a black ribbon around her neck, and bobbled a basket of crullers from the baker, nearly dropping them. Morning light filled the studio and lit Lise's orange-red hair like a nimbus. She laughed when she saw the topaz. "Oh! A marquise! Don't see many of them anymore."
"They're out of fashion, yes, but look at the color." I was training her to be more than an assistant. She had a good eye for ornamentation, and for how much a client was willing to pay.
As Lise looked, the light passed through the topaz, which was very large, thirty carats, and threw a dappled yellow cast over her cheeks. Her eyes seemed tinted with jaundice in the glare of the gem. I dropped it on my workbench with a clatter.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was thinking if I planned to cut the stone, it would be well to do it now, before Chambers comes."
"You finished his order?"
"Not yet." Chambers was my best customer. He could not use the more venerable jewelers, but his lady loved new baubles. Better still for me, his money far exceeded his taste. His latest commission was a gold bracelet, cast in the shape of a naked woman. I had completed the wax model but needed his approval to continue. The carving, in thick maroon wax, sat on my oak worktable, in the shade where the sun would not melt it.
Lise looked the figure over. The woman's fingertips touched her toes where the clasp would go. Her arching back formed the curve of the bracelet. Flowing hair covered her breasts and hips. On her face, I'd carved a look of mild ecstasy.
I ducked my head to focus on the topaz, so that Lise would not see me blushing. Though the hair was long and would be flaxen in the final work, I'd realized too late that the face I'd carved on the bracelet was Lise's own.
When she put the bracelet down without reaction and continued moving about the studio, straightening things, I breathed more easily. She wasn't one to look in a mirror, so she likely hadn't noticed.
Lise went to open the shop, while I began to mark the topaz with my grease pencil. No one would buy a marquise nowadays, and few would want a stone so yellow, despite the perfection of the facets. Large gems were all but out of fashion in the city. A few heads of state from the outer kingdoms still wore them when they visited, but they could get away with garishness. Our city, with its thriving port, set the style for the surrounding kingdoms. That settled it. The marquise topaz would make two perfect trillions and a baguette. Earrings and a pendant, at least. Someone's lady would be very happy.
The shop bell rang below, and Lise greeted a customer. When the bell chimed again, I heard her singing, though I couldn't make out the words. She sang when she'd sold a piece. How exquisite. Lise had grown as good at coaxing purchases from clients as I was at shaping wax and jewels.
I prepared my diamond saw, making sure there was enough tension on the blade to cut the gem cleanly, then lifted the topaz once more to the light.
"What are you doing, sir?" Lise's voice cut through my thoughts. I lowered the gem. "Chambers comes in an hour. Don't you want lunch?"
She held out a wrapped sandwich. I saw that the morning light I loved so much had changed to the bright angles of noon.
The topaz, uncut, sweated in my hand.
"What have you been doing all morning?" Lise asked again. I could not answer her. I had no memory of doing anything besides preparing the topaz. I took the sandwich -- cheese and a slice of beef on a thick rye bread -- in my free hand and crammed my mouth full.
Lise looked at me strangely, then pulled me to the table where we often took our lunches together to talk about the shop. "Won't you sit and eat?"
I chewed and sat. The topaz fell from my hand to the table. I swallowed. "I was going to cut it. Into three."
"You have been working too hard," she said and patted my hand. Her touch made me jump. After the cold facets of the gem, her fingers felt like fire. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"No my dear, I am the one who must apologize." I put my hand over hers and held it there for perhaps too long.
Below the open window, the baker greeted Chambers with merriment and a crude joke. Chambers returned the jest in kind and both laughed. Then my client's riding boots clattered on the stairs.
I rose and put the topaz on my workbench, covered in its linen wrap, and g
athered up the wax model. It was my custom to greet Chambers at the door.
"I can't stay," he said. "Very inconvenient, all these approvals."
I understood completely, but Chambers's satisfaction was a fleeting thing. Well that I had required his approval, as Chambers shook his head almost at once.
"It's not wrong," he said. "But it's not quite enough." His hands shaped curves in the air. "And her hair is never completely down. Can you change that?"
I said that I would, and invited him to return in the morning.
Lise asked leave to visit her father in the afternoon, so I sat in the shop in her place, sold two pairs of gold earrings to a dowager, and worked on the wax model.
The next morning, I returned to the shop from my apartment across town, taking the stairs to the studio two at a time. I'd re-carved the wax figure for Chambers's bracelet so that the breasts were gloriously revealed and the figure's hair was coiled in an ancient style atop her head, with tresses streaming down the back and over her hips. Even in dark wax, the result was some of my favorite work to date. I was eager to see how it looked in the light.
Lise met me at the door, her cheeks and eyes puffy.
"Is your father worse?" I asked with great concern, for the man had been bed-bound of late.
She shook her head, no. It took me as long to pry the reason from her as it did for me to pull the key from under the wrapped topaz in my pocket. I hadn't realized I'd taken it home with me. As I opened the door, she said, "You can't ignore dreams around the ill and dying." Her eyes filled; tears wobbled but did not spill.
She'd been crying all night. "I was kneeling, my hands and feet bound with fine gold wire, and a cloaked man tried to carry me off. I kicked my feet and the wire turned to hair, so I broke loose and ran towards the sound of your voice. But --" her words trailed off until she gathered herself. "The ground was sharp, littered with shattered amethysts. The shards cut my feet. I turned to fight the cloaked man and saw you across his shoulders, bound and stilled. That topaz was stuffed in your mouth."