Fire in the Wall

by S G Dunster

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s a terrifying experience. You’re underwater, and all you see above you is blank whiteness. You need air—your lungs are roaring for it, but you can’t, even to save your life, find the place you broke through. The piece of emptiness in the solid mass keeps you from surfacing.”

  I understood what he was saying. A thrill danced along my back, and I shivered involuntarily.

  “We could lose it,” I said. “The firmament.”

  “Lose it entirely,” Eap agreed. “Don’t you think, with all the tellers crammed together in that little tumbledown crescent of land, it wasn’t thought of before? That there weren’t wayfarers among us? The problem is, compasses don’t work in a world based on thought and expectation. If we panic, if we lose the firmament, lose the continent— “

  “We lose the connection with above. The crust. You couldn’t be sure of ever getting back,” I finished for him.

  “Precisely. The price for a new, bright paradise free of Grimwoods and Grim-whatever-elses, far away and separate from the two, would be to lose any known connection to the world above.”

  “To drift. It’s choosing to drift . . . to leave firmament permanently.” I frowned at him. “But why do you care? You said if you were ever to surface on the crust— “

  “I’d crumble,” Eap said. “I’ve lived far too long down here to stand up to conventions woven on the crust. I’m over two-hundred, I’m sure, by now. Men do not, on the crust, live to the age of a tree as yet. Unless things have changed dramatically since I left.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So . . . why do you care? About the connection to the crust? If going up means you’d die anyway?”

  Eap was the one who shuddered this time. Monty, standing on his shoulder, leapt to the ground, gave me a good yellow-green glare, and slunk through the doorway, headed toward the deck. “To choose to fully immerse yourself in it,” he said. “To submerge. To sink. To leave all thought of surface and air behind?” He locked eyes with me. “Could you do it?”

  I held his gaze. “Do we have a choice?”

  After a moment, he nodded. “I think,” he said, bringing his fingers to his lips, “it’s possible. But we shall want to drift a while longer. An entire city, in the sky.” He shook his head. “In my time, Lil,” he turned to her again, “tropes were quivering women and black moustaches.”

  “That’s comedy now,” I said.

  He gave me a distracted smile and held out his hand. Uncurling his fingers, a long cylinder of paper solidified. He leapt off the bed and unrolled it on the floor.

  It was the crescent, the map. There were more markings on it, including an indication of Hans’ house on the side of the plateau. “If I’ve got my directions right, we’re around here.” He touched the center of the crescent’s outer curve, and slid his finger away, into blank page, stopping about another crescent’s width away. “Let’s get twice the distance.”

  “You were saying we don’t know anything about making firmament.” Lil had climbed into her hammock and was staring up at the ceiling, arms and legs star-fished and limp, resting on the netting.

  “We will all have to tell it,” Eap answered. “Over and over, in many different ways, from many different angles, if we want it to be true firmament. And there will be pain, suffering, and fear. Grimms know that is the fastest way to take over another’s mind.”

  “We’ll need Hans,” Lil stated, eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Yes,” Eap and I said in unison.

  “But you two don’t trust him.”

  “We trust him better than Grimwolves and Rooks,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure.” It came out so quiet, I could barely hear her.

  “We must win him over,” Eap replied gently. “We’ve little choice.”

  Satie came out of Lil’s overall pocket and curled up on her hair, puddled around her head. I couldn’t handle the look in her eyes. It tore me, and filled me with a rage as deep and red as Eap’s self-refilling wine. How could Hans be so cold? I noticed her wall, then—instead of a wildly orange-and-yellow gecko splashed across it, a spiral was there. Grey.

  “Let’s go,” I said quietly to Eap.

  We left her room. “I can’t trust him, either,” I said when we were out of earshot. “And I’m not talking to the dude. You’ll have to— “

  Eap grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me against the wall. “Do you think this is a game? This, Logan, is life and death. Sure as you’ve ever faced it. Sure as you ever will face it. You are going to go with me down to that dungeon of yours. You’re going to tell Hans your idea and sell it as yours because anything coming from me, at present, he will reject outright from pure spite. You’ve got his guilty conscience weighing in your favor.”

  “I put him in the chokey,” I retorted. “He won’t listen to me, either.”

  “He’s endured much worse than a room with bars,” Eap said, and let me go, delicately wiping his eyelid with his index finger. I’d spit on him accidentally. “There’s no room for grudges right now. We’ll need to take each other as we are, moment by moment, flaw by flaw, and weave firmament together. The strength of the Two, Logan, is their seamless tandem. We cannot hope to challenge them if we fight each other and harbor pettiness.”

  “Pettiness,” I said. “You mean small things, like being mad someone tried to kill me. And almost succeeded.”

  “Here, that is a small thing,” Eap replied. “You cannot die here.”

  A clot of dread was already gathering in my stomach as I pulled open the forward hatch and descended those spiraling iron stairs I’d spent an hour drawing during Calculus class.

  The air tasted good to me. Hot clean steel. Red cinders. Motor oil and sweat. I took in a comforting breath and stepped onto the floor. “Chokey’s this way.” I nodded to Saeg, the slim, sharp-eyed man who was currently acting as shift leader. He’d been born in the slums of Thornburgh, the second-largest city in Astridia. He’d stowed away on Calendula, a coal-merchant’s ship, when he was twelve. He had a real talent for engines.

  I let the sparkle of my story and the signs of it on his face—this real person I’d made—comfort me as we made our way along the narrow metal catwalk. But it brought with it a stab of guilt, as I thought of the real people I’d just thrown away.

  Selah.

  Arapahoe.

  My friends.

  I closed my eyes and counted the rhythm of the pulsing, turning pistons that kept the fans going. Right at the end was a door fitted with iron bars.

  “You go first.”

  Eap didn’t argue. He tapped the door politely.

  “He can’t open . . .” I began, then stopped as the door swung open.

  “Of course I can,” Hans said. “You think your tellings hold such weight as to keep me contained, boy? My prison is mist, not metal bars.”

  “Why are you staying down here in the chokey, then?”

  “What does it matter, the form of the prison?” Hans stepped aside, and Eap walked in.

  I stood there debating furiously, and finally followed, giving Hans a wide berth, avoiding eye contact.

  “Logan here has come up with a plan to remedy that,” Eap said. “We came to see if you were interested.”

  “Interested in what?” Hans settled onto the ground—iron, bolted to the wall with fist-sized knobs. He ground his back into them and gave Eap a bland stare. “There is no remedy. We are done for, Edgar. Accept it and find peace.”

  “I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of blykhood, thank you.” Eap’s tone was still mild, though I could see the tightness in his jaw.

  I took over. “We are going to make more firmament. A city in the sky. Above the clouds. High, and out of the way.”

  “It’ll be found by the rooks in a matter of hours.”

  “We’re straying from the crescent, Hans,” Eap put in. We are moving far into the mists.”

  Hans’ face went rigid.
“What?” He stood, shoving past us. “And be left adrift in nothing? With no known way back to the firmament? To crust? I’d choose blykhood over madness.”

  “We’re not going to go out that far. We’re going to keep close enough to find land again,” I said.

  Hans gave me a scalding look. “That is the hope,” Eap interjected. “A balance of

  distance and closeness. Even rooks will take a while, circling and searching these mists, if they are expecting something low to the ground, not up in the clouds.”

  “And by the time they find us,” I said, “It will be solid enough to keep them out.”

  Hans snorted at this, some of his color returning. “Nothing keeps Grimwoods out. Not river, not mountain. Not even flesh.”

  “Hans,” Eap said. “Don’t you see? We’re four.”

  “Four, seven, twelve. It’ll do no good.”

  “Four have never tried.”

  Hans raised his watery eyes to meet Eap’s. “I have failed one too many times. I am a broken man, Edgar. Leave me alone.”

  I sat for a while, listening to the talk, debate, trying to interpret gesticulations. At one point, I thought they might jump each other and start fighting.

  But it ended much more miserably. Hans simply shook his head, curled his face into his bent knees, and was silent. He stopped talking, and Eap shouted, pounded, cursed, and finally, grabbed the handle—frosted glass with a crown imprinted on it—that now adorned my previously handle-less prison door.

  “Come on,” he growled at me. “You were right. It’s a waste of breath.”

  “And spittle.” The faint reply, muffled by hair and folds of silver brocade, nearly sent Eap over the edge. He turned, face a snarl, to reply. I gave him a shove between the shoulder blades, sending him stumbling out onto the catwalk, and closed the door behind us.

  Chapter 19

  “We’re going to have to do this on our own,” I said as we climbed the stairs. “And honestly? Good riddance. You were right; we had to try. We tried. It’s three, not four of us, to fight the Grimms.”

  Eap ran his pale, stubby fingers through his hair. “Though I’d love nothing more than to crack him sternum to throat, we can’t afford to give Hans up just yet. The three of us will do for now, but in the long run, we will need him. Let us go and collect Lil.”

  I shook my head. “It’s just us for now. Lil’s going to be out of it for a while. There was a spiral on her ceiling. We need to get going without her.”

  Eap gave me a puzzled look.

  “Don’t ask me to explain. I mean, I don’t even know. I’ve never seen her cry before like she did up there. Ever.” I shook my head.

  “What is her home life like, our Lil?”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Just an inquiry.”

  “You think that maybe Lil sees Hans as a dad. Or a nice grandpa. Or something.” I let out a gust of breath and leaned on the rail, looking down at the swirls of white mist below us. White mist above us. Everywhere. Were we even flying? Or just floating, disembodied in space?

  The deck began to tilt a little, rock.

  “Logan—” Eap began.

  I held up a hand, cutting him off, and forced myself to think of flying through the mist as if it were a thick cloud, and we were flying smooth again. “Yeah. She probably did,” I answered. “I mean, she lives with us. Me and Mom. We’re around. But she doesn’t have a lot of friends at school. And her dad isn’t around. Her mom left her. My dad’s not around either. Mom takes care of us.”

  “Eap,” I said, feeling suddenly very small and lost, “the sky’s gone. We’ve left it all behind. The Grimms aren’t following us anymore.”

  Eap looked up and smiled. “So it has. I’d say we can stop soon, Logan. And build your city.”

  “I’ll tell Marco.”

  “Why not simply stop the ship?”

  “Because then everyone on the ship will want to know what magic made the engines suddenly stop going and the paddles stop moving,” I said. “If we’re telling something that makes any sense, it all has to make sense, Eap.”

  “Good boy.” He patted my head.

  I glared at him.

  His eyes were wrinkled at the corners, like he was holding back a smile.

  “It’s not dumb,” I said, “to take care of what you’ve made. To just . . . dispose of things, to change them for no reason and confuse everyone you’ve . . . it’s a waste.” A throb of pain hit me. Blinking to hide my own tears, I stalked over to the engine room.

  I had done just this, though. Where were Arapahoe? And Selah? I’d erased them. Because I couldn’t handle what I’d done. I’d made them not-real because I couldn’t handle the reality of them.

  Marco didn’t ask any questions. I could tell he was curious by the way he glanced at me. He brought the ship to a standstill, then came out to join me on the deck. His mouth fell open in a slow gape.

  “I know. It’s just . . . a lot of clouds,” I said.

  He shook his head and pointed.

  Fear thrilled through me as I saw the dark shape rocketing toward us. Was it a rook?

  It got big—too big to be a rook or any kind of bird. I thought it might be another airship.

  No.

  The moth.

  Lil’s moth.

  His great, grotesque body swelled into view, gleaming like a chandelier. His sail-shaped wings spread wide, a glow of jewels contrasted by black wing-ribs.

  “Mr. Smiley,” I groaned. “It’s just the moth.”

  “Winging right toward us,” Marco snapped.

  Right to our balloon.

  A moth the size of a semi-truck.

  “Lil!” I shouted, running for the cabins. “Lil, call off your friend! Lil, Mr. Smiley’s found us. I need you out here now!”

  It was too late. The moth landed on the side of the balloon, shaking the whole structure, sending our ship rocking and flying. I tumbled and slid along the deck. Marco and I both hit the cabin wall and lay there, dazed, until the rocking stopped.

  I gazed up at the dark triangular shadow, visible through the membrane of the balloon. People were streaming out of cabins, out of the salon. The trap door flipped up and a couple faces poked out.

  “A little turbulence,” I said.

  Corinne pointed up at the balloon and gave a lusty yell. There was a shadow, a huge, bulbous-winged shadow, moving sluggishly up the side of the balloon.

  “That’s a friend,” I added. “A great big . . .” I didn’t have the words. “A moth. It’s a moth.”

  Corinne grunted and wiped her face with her apron. She gave a speculative glare, then went back into her kitchens. The others slowly went back to their duties as well, throwing looks at me. Uncertainty.

  They were as weirded out as I was by all this. My people.

  “It will be fine.” Eap came around the corner as I got back on my feet. Marco rose, too. “It’s landed, now. Moths are nocturnal creatures; it was merely looking for a roost. It has probably been following us all along. When we stopped, it—he—caught up.”

  “Hope it didn’t bring anything else along with it,” I grumbled. “Marco, sorry. We’re going to be stopped for a while.”

  “I’ll go get a bite, then, Cap’n.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Come. Let’s start on our city,” Eap said when he’d left.

  We stood at the ship’s broad stern, leaning against the rails, looking out into the nothing. The gust from the still-slowing air paddles whipped at Eap’s overlarge cloak and sent it billowing behind him. He looked, to me, almost like superman, ready to take off.

  He turned to me and raised a brow. “Well?”

  I shrugged. Experimentally, I reached—put my hand and arm out. Hans and Eap had made gestures when they told, and it seemed like it might’ve helped them.

  I thought of a clear, jade-green sky with feather-wisps of cloud.

  I don’t know if it was the gesture, but the picture in my mind immediately leaked into the sky
all around us—it glowed soft green-blue, and the clouds formed.

  “Here.” Eap pulled a scroll out of his deep hip pocket, throwing it along the deck so it unrolled. “See what you make of this.”

  It was a city plan. The circles represented my idea of domed enclosures well. He’d put the largest in the center, a huge stack of them, with lines leading outward to others, connecting them.

  I looked it over, knelt, and studied it carefully. It was intricate. The thought of trying to make it all was overwhelming.

  “Start with this.” Eap tapped the central dome. “Make it and I shall see what you have been seeing in your mind. In seeing it, I shall make it firmer, and together we shall build out the rest of it.”

  I stood in the stern, the wind tearing my hair back from my face, and looked out over the empty sky. A forest of massive beams with dozens of domes circling them, like plates on a juggler’s pole. The glass: strong, eight-layered for insulation and safety. Oxygen wells embedded in the floor, off-gassed by all the plants.

  The common area inside: a tall space where trees would grow, where levels and levels of shining glass would hold potted gardens, sunlight filtering through it all. The surrounding compartments: homes, shops, and small contained personal gardens. The water: used, then cleaned. Then used, and cleaned. A perfect, enclosed system.

  A sliding shell that could rise up and cover it, made of titanium. “It’s a super-hard, light metal,” I explained to Eap, pointing as it slid up over the dome, reflecting the sky all around. “It’ll hide us, maybe. It’ll stop bullets, too. And maybe bombs. Hopefully, rooks.”

  “Fine. Admirable. Strange, too.” Eap ran a hand through his curls. “Strange is good. I think I’ve got it.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll take this section of the map.” He pointed to a group of domes at the edge nearest to us. “You build out from the center.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking of our city center. Its piles and piles of domes, centered on stands of fat steel poles. Docking stations, moving swarms of airships, streams of small craft hovering, selling fruits and vegetables and other things that could grow in an air city or be hunted.