Cloudbound (21 page)

Doran squeezed her shoulder. “We'll fix the Spire's danger with the lighter-than-air, Ceetcee. More lighter-than-air means we can float families to other towers quickly if we need to. We have enough stored to do that.” Before the council platform's ruins, Doran's vision expanded.

But we'd heard enough. We had no lighter-than-air here, and it would do us no good below the clouds. Doran clasped our hands, murmuring, “On your wings,” until he got to Ciel, who demurred, eyes down, as if she was shy, but I saw her teeth clench.

I kissed Elna's thinning hair and whispered, “I'll be back for you.”

“I know you will,” she said. “Mercy on your wings.”

Then Doran's guards launched off the hightower balcony and circled, waiting. There was no more time. Ciel leapt from the tower and wobbled on her fledge wings, followed by the three of us. The guards whistled a chevron formation, allowing Ciel to draft behind them.

*   *   *

A clean, westerly breeze filled my wings, buoyed me up, and brushed my cheeks cold.

Wind always forgets the harm done to it. It bears no grudges, no scars. Not like us.

Off my windward pinion, the sun dipped into the cloudtop, tinting the bases of towers brass and rose as we passed them. We flew as an arrow-point through the evening, not towards the city's edge, but to its center.

When we came to Bissel, we passed the tier where Hiroli said she'd meet us. Found it empty. The blackwings searching for Singers must have gotten to them first. Ciel looked towards me, worried.

“We'll find them,” I said, not sure at all that we would. Worse, we would have to protect Ciel, more than ever. Until we found the traitor, all Singers would be hunted. Even fledges.

The guards took us to the edge of the mist. Left us on a ledge three tiers below the cloudtop and slipped back above, into the setting sun.

Atop the ledge, I shivered. We were here, now, because I'd wanted to be on council, to lead. To never be downtower again. To uncover the city's secrets. For a few moments, I let myself think miserably about what my ambition had brought to my city, my friends, to my family. Then Ciel nudged me, her face far more serious than I would have thought possible for her age, until I remembered what she'd been through. “We'll find the traitor,” she said.

“We will,” I promised her. “We'll make things better for you, and for everyone.”

“Do you think Doran's telling the truth?” Ceetcee asked. “About the plates? Dix? Do you think he believes the Singers did this?”

“I think he's telling the truth as he sees it,” Beliak said. “I think he's telling the only truth the city has right now.”

We would have to sift through layers of truth in order to find the answers we needed. We had to find a new truth below the city so that we could tell it above.

 

PART THREE

FOUND

 

On the wing, the new flock of black kaviks attacked smaller whipperlings as they discovered them. Circling, they watched the brown bodies drop to the clouds, before continuing to the next tower, and then another.

TREASON (revised)

The city betrayed, whether Council or quadrant,

Removes danger with unceasing might.

None are exempt, none immune.

To preserve the city,

all excise blight.

WAR

No tower will sabotage or war

With neighbors near or far.

We rise together or fall apart

With clouds below, our judge.

 

17

GHOST TOWER

Our world divided now between below and above. Missing and not. Proof and rumor.

City children learned early the clouds were dangerous. For us, now? Safety wasn't guaranteed above the clouds, and below, we were on our own.

We had until Allmoons to prove the Singers weren't at fault. To find out who'd attacked the council, who'd stolen the artifex, and why.

Two days.

We peered into the mist, unsure of where to begin.

Across the cloudscape, evening light slanted through thick air to reveal more towers' forms. They loomed gray and green in the distance, some rising right through the clouds, others ending before they breached the surface. Larger shadows moved the depths below.

“What's that?” Ceetcee said. Her resolve wavered now that we were downtower.

“Could be gryphons.” I tried to keep my voice light. Skymouths? Bone eaters? Worse? “Let's find shelter.” Before anything could rise to investigate our presence.

The winds were more turbulent within the clouds, as we'd learned before. But they were still rideable. The guards had oiled our wings against the damp, had provided us warm quilts, and food. Some weapons, for most of us.

Something moved beneath my foot. A tether, tied to a piton and a weathered grip. One of the shadows began to creep up the side of Bissel, moving closer to us. I unsheathed my knife. Beliak drew his too. Then I grabbed the tether and gave it a snap. “Stop where you are.”

“Nat?” Aliati's voice, muffled by the clouds.

Beliak reached down and hauled her to the ledge. “Greetings, Risen,” he said, with a sad grin.

She stood, brushing damp threads of moss from her robes. “What happened? I've been searching the undercloud all day. I saw the Conclave. They didn't fly the Singers to the city's edge?”

Conclave? Realization dawned. “
No,
” I said, trying to put words to the disaster. Reeling at what she'd seen from beneath the clouds.

She frowned, confused. “If that wasn't a Conclave, what was it?”

“That was the council. They fell.” I gripped her arm so tight she tried to pull away. “You saw an attack on the platform.” More than that, she'd seen them fall. “Did you see where they landed? Will you take me there?”

“I can, in the morning—it'll be easier.” She looked up at her dry quarters, and readied to climb.

But we couldn't wait. We had to find shelter below the clouds, to hide Ciel, and Ceetcee too, from the angry towers. I showed her the message chips. “We have to go below. You've done this, when you scavenged. Tell us how?”

She frowned, slowly turning her head to look at the cloudtop. “I've never spent a night in the clouds. Don't know many who have.”

Many,
not
any.
That meant some. “Please, we need your help. We must go now,” Ciel said, her voice edged with fear.

Aliati thought hard. Then made a decision. “There are caves where scavengers leave supplies, in case someone gets caught out, or hurt.”

“Scavengers look out for each other?” Hard to believe.

She caught my look of doubt. “We work alone, keep what we find, each to ourselves. But we leave caches for others in need, in case we need one someday.”

Scavengers had more kindness in them than some citizens in the towers.

“What we must do is not get lost,” Aliati said. “First rule of working in the clouds.”

She knelt on the ledge and pulled the small Gravity game from her robe. In the dim cloudlight, we could barely see the tower sigils on the silk. Bending close caused my shoulders and leg to throb, from landing on Varu.

Using a bone chip to mark the tower where we stood now, Aliati said, “There's a broken tower, just there.” She pointed to a space in the clouds. “It's what scavengers call a ghost tower. It stands between Bissel and Naza, but far lower, hidden by the clouds. That's why those towers are so far apart in the city, when other towers are close.”

She pulled out her tools. Laid the straight edge against the game sheet. “I don't know exact distances, but it usually takes me about two verses of The Rise to get there.” She began to coil the tether, then half-hitched it to her shoulder strap.

“Are you proposing we go now?” Beliak said.

“Unless you want to stay on this ledge all night? My echoing's getting good, but I'd rather not risk getting separated.”

She wasn't merely proposing we go to the ghost tower. She was proposing to come with us. “I'll show you where the council fell tomorrow, if you want to employ me. Other scavengers have been searching, paid by the towers, but I'm the only one who knows where the council is. So far.”

Ah. She wasn't doing this out of the goodness of her heart. “I'll pay you,” I said. I would get Doran to give me tower marks. “And as for not getting lost, we can pick windsigns,” I said. “Keep track of each other like hunters do.” I whistled one as an example: “defend.” Two long notes, one short.

Ceetcee considered for a moment, then whistled “bridge,” a long note with a curl at the end.

Aliati chose “retrieve.” Three long, piercing whistles.

Beliak chose the call for a circle formation. One long note with two short notes following.

Ciel couldn't decide. So we gave her the windsign for “home.” She liked that.

“We'll find Moc,” I promised her.

“I believe you,” she whispered back.

One more thing. “Keep an eye out for survivors.” For Ezarit. For Kirit. For others.

“If we find too many survivors, they will slow us down,” Aliati said.

“If we find any,” I said firmly, “we'll help them. We are not cowards. We won't turn away someone in need.”

*   *   *

Aliati searched for the strongest vent she could find, asking Ciel to echo with her in order to help her see the wind's shape. I scanned the darkening clouds for invisible menaces. The sun began to set as we flew for the ghost tower, tinting the clouds around us orange and gold, then rose and blood.

She took us lower than I'd flown near the Spire. Lower than the net where I'd lost Kirit. Everything above disappeared. Then what were once layers of mist shot through with beams of light, now turned opaque. The tower shadows we'd been using to orient ourselves faded. We could still hear just fine, but we couldn't see very far at all until our eyes once again grew used to the dim light. I focused on Aliati's wings, the sound of her whistle: the three long notes.
Retrieve.