Cloudbound (36 page)

“She wants to send a message to the city,” Ceetcee said.

Hiroli glared at her, then waved her worry away. “I didn't say I wanted to talk to the city. I said we need medicine we can't get down here. We need food and supplies.”

“That's as good as telling Dix's guards where we are,” Ceetcee said. “We don't need the city. We can use what's down here: ferns and lichens heal wounds. Aliati knows how.”

At mention of medicine, my worries returned, the magic of discovery fading. Illness, dampness. Would a mythical Corwin come for us too?

“If we wait here for the blackwings to find us, surviving on leaves, we'll be easy to defeat,” Hiroli said. “The air isn't good for you, Ceetcee. Nor the food. It's not good for anyone.”

“We have the gryphon, and we'll find more food,” I said, although I saw Hiroli's point. She hadn't told anyone about the kavik. Why not?

“There's no time. We aren't staying here,” Hiroli countered. “You're looking at carvings and etchings you can't read, from people long gone. They mean nothing, and Dix wants them. Let's offer her some to get help for our friends.”

Now she spoke cloud Treason. “Councilor, you're out of order. You've not seen what we've been,” I said. “You were—”

“Trapped at Laria, by Dix,” she finished. “Yes, I remember clearly.” She narrowed her eyes. “I'd been waiting for you to return, as ordered! Did you think I went there by choice?”

Doran touched her shoulder. “Nat doesn't think that. No one does.”

But Hiroli's words struck a chord, and the note was sour. I'd left her at risk on Bissel while we argued with Doran on Varu. Now she was right. I was worried about Ceetcee and Beliak. I wanted to get back to the city more than I could say. Hiroli hadn't been through what we'd been through. But she'd had her own trials. “Dix would destroy this place to get her hands on the plates. And she'd want more than the plates—she'd want the artifex too.”

“She can get another artifex,” Doran said, patting Djonn's shoulder. “This one is ours.”

Djonn stepped away from Doran's hand rather than answer. I didn't like Doran's possessiveness either.

“You've been back here, exploring, when we should be planning. But you missed a whole alcove,” Hiroli said. “You'll understand better once you see it.”

Hiroli had been exploring too, without us.

“What is it?” I said. I had to duck low to get into the alcove Hiroli had found; the entrance was tiny. When I made it through, I could see shadows clustered along the back wall.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I moved closer. The piles were bones, left where they'd fallen. Not normal undercloud fare, either. These were human bones.

I recoiled, and Hiroli whispered, “Shocking, isn't it. So many bodies.” She was right. We didn't keep our dead in the city. In the past days, I'd seen more bodies than I should have in a lifetime. But I returned to the room, curious.

Each pile's skull had a hole in it, or broken ribs, as from an arrow or a knife blade. People had fought and died here. Judging by the dust, a very long time ago.

Around the room, rough overgrowth marked places where brass plates and rods had been pulled from the walls. I saw outlines of four plates. Touched the plate in my satchel. Djonn had one also. Doran two. Four had fallen into the clouds. Had all of these and more been pried from this room long ago?

Without the metal to restrict growth, the room was slowly growing together, pushing on the bone piles and absorbing them in the process.

Wik waited outside, peering in; he was too broad-shouldered to enter. “This is what I meant by dangerous. The plates—they can be stolen or taken by force. Songs and Laws get memorized and passed up. No one kills for them,” he said.

Only Hiroli's small footprints and my larger ones marred the dusty floor. But Wik was right. In this cave—the nest of thieves—the builders hadn't left their metal behind. They hadn't abandoned the littlemouth chamber when they'd risen up the towers.

They'd died in its defense.

 

28

THE TOWERS

“Who were they?” I asked the cave.

Aliati came up behind us. “They weren't scavengers.” Wik, who'd been staring at the skeletons dissolving into the city, jumped, startled by her voice.

Some bones were grown into the floor, the city taking them back in a slow process.
What had happened to them?
“How do you know they weren't scavengers?” I asked her.

Aliati said, “They died here. They made a home and they died in it. That's not what scavengers do.” There was a note of admiration in her voice.

“But why didn't these piles attract a bone eater?” Wik wondered. “Why did they leave the other plates?”

“Maybe it did attract a bone eater, or worse.” I thought of the skymouth husk in the other room. The teeth we'd reclaimed, that Kirit was turning into knives. Perhaps it had chased the attackers away.

Ceetcee still fumed at Hiroli. “Take her kavik before you start mulling history. She shouldn't send a message until we all agree to do it. Even knowing what we do now.”

Hiroli looked meaningfully at the bones, frowning. She held the kavik tightly.

“Ceetcee's right,” I said, and held out my hand.

Slowly, Hiroli passed the bird to me. I gave it to Ceetcee, who tucked the wriggling thing under her arm with a glare.

We had no cloth to cover the bones with, and we couldn't lower them into the clouds. They were part of the city now. Looking up to the clouds for Remembrances seemed wrong here.

“How do you mourn the past?” I wondered.

Wik knelt at the entrance to the space. “By remembering it.” He drew a pattern in the dust. The sign for Allmoons. “Mercy on your wings, citizens.”

We backed away from the room. I planned on never returning. Leaving those particular ghosts at peace.

Walking up to us, Kirit coughed. “Beliak is finally asleep,” she said. She stared at the bones and reached out to Wik, unable to tear her gaze away. “Mercy on their wings.”

I'd turned to lead her and all of us back into the main cave, but Aliati whistled “follow.” She'd ducked through an opening, and beyond it, the passage broadened and grew light enough to see by without the littlemouths' help. As we traced her path, the light grew brighter still. We stood at another cave mouth, one that opened onto a sky meadow.

Oh.
Green with vegetation and flooded with mist, the meadow filled in the space between the tower, the ridge walls beside it, and two more towers in the distance. Outcroppings stretched between them, joining into walls. It was beautiful. Behind me, the others crowded the cave mouth, exclaiming.

The storm had passed for now, and the meadow's greens sparkled with moisture.

Moc lowered himself down the tower's side.

“Don't—” I said, thinking of another valley, where the vegetation had been thin in places, and easy to fall through. Too late. Moc's feet crushed the plants growing above the moss near the tower; he waded through a mass of nettles, yelping now and then while gathering more stems for food on the way. The meadow remained firm beneath his feet. He focused on a stand of tall branches that curled into spirals: Ferns. Giant ones.

Moc stopped and looked back at us. Pulled a bone hook from his belt. “I'll be careful, I promise. Ciel, come down here. I can see the whole meadow, and the towers.”

He sounded like the old Moc again, like he'd shaken loose the last webs from Laria.

Drawing out my last tether, I knotted the line to a wing grip on the wall. The tower gate had once been carved with murals, but age and weather had worn those away. I climbed down the wall and landed close to Moc. My feet crunched fern leaves. The uneven surface rolled and compressed like the guano and loam mix Beliak used in balcony planters uptower, though richer and lumpier. I stumbled more than once.

Nettles scraped my legs where my robes were torn, burning my skin. The pain barely registered. I was walking between towers. Not flying, not crossing a bridge—I could turn in any direction and keep walking. It was like flying for the first time. Moc's face showed similar glee. “We don't even have to use wings!” He'd been without a wingset for so long. Now he didn't need any.

At least for now. We would have to return soon and decide what to do. How to confront the city.

Beside me, Aliati, Doran, and Ceetcee climbed down into the meadow to pick the ferns and lichen. Ceetcee held out corners of her robe to make a bowl. The wet tearing of roots sounded like fabric ripping. “You sure this is solid?”

Aliati held up a batten, caked with at least a hand span of dirt. “We won't hurt it picking a few leaves. Just watch where you step.”

From the corner of my eye, I caught movement by the cave entrance. Kirit had fallen to her knees.

For me, for Moc, this meadow held wonder. For Kirit, it must contain echoes of another valley, the memory of councilors falling from the clouds. Her mother. For a moment, I smelled the awful scent of the fallen again. She'd lost almost everyone. I still had family, even here. For now.

I started towards Kirit. She'd been lost beneath the clouds, and the council had fallen to the ground where she'd stood. We were no longer rivals in the Gyre, and we weren't wing-siblings either. We'd both changed and made mistakes and survived.

But I'd want her fighting by my side, or at my wingtip, no matter what. As I would fight at hers.

Though I moved fast, Wik got to her first and waved me away. Wordlessly, he helped Kirit back inside the cave.

Moc, meanwhile, had moved forward, towards the far towers. Chief explorer. Ciel followed, but yelped when she snagged on a nettle. It didn't stop her for long. Careful where she put her feet, she spun in a slow circle, taking in the dirt beneath her feet, the towers around her, rising dark and gray up into the clouds.

*   *   *

“Three towers, together!” Moc pointed. “Which ones are they, do you think?”

“We shouldn't take too long here,” I said. “See if there are more plates, more weapons, then head back.”

The boy made a face. “Djonn's gone to sit with Beliak so Wik could stay with Kirit. Everyone's fine,” Moc said. “Please?” Ciel echoed him. They sounded like children again.

I couldn't say no.

But when we reached the base of the next nearest tower, we faced a wall of solid bone. The core had grown out and over the tiers. “Nothing,” I said, preparing to turn around.

Moc clambered up a bonefall and prepared to leap to another pile of bone closer to the next tower's edge. I was about to argue him back down when footsteps crunched the ferns nearby. Ceetcee approached.

“Moc! Careful. We can't patch you up as easily down here.” She turned to me. “Aliati's making poultices for Beliak. She hopes it will help him, as well as Doran and the others who are injured.” With Ceetcee distracted by talking to me, Ciel had joined her brother on the bonefall. Ceetcee frowned but didn't scold again. “Doran's trying to talk her into scavenging the metal in the cave, but she's resolute. Says this is a scavenger sanctum. She won't touch it.”

“That's good news.” We needed someone else to keep an eye on Doran—someone who wasn't Wik—who could understand Doran's interest in salvaging while still disagreeing with him. “How are you feeling?” I watched Aliati and Doran climb the wall back to the cave mouth, pulling themselves hand over hand by the tether.

“Better,” she said. And she looked it. “Food helped.”

“We'd had food with us the whole time, in Hiroli's pockets.” We just hadn't known it. “Hiroli knew.”

“She did. And she's scared. I'm trying to forgive her for the bird. She wants to go back up as much as the rest of us. Which is why Aliati and I've been thinking about where we are, in relation to the city—Careful!” The last was shouted as Moc climbed closer to the next tower and Ciel followed him. Bones clattered as they scrambled and leapt between piles.

“We're undercloud,” I said, turning in a circle. It seemed all there was left to us. The twins had reached a safe spot on the bonefall.

But Ceetcee pulled a silk square from her pocket. “I borrowed this from Aliati.” The Justice game. She walked towards the tower and spread the game board on a broad block of fallen bone.

With the city above spread once more before us, Ceetcee put her finger next to Bissel. “The ghost tower is here. We flew south and west from Laria to the ledge. Then turned this way, I think,” her finger traced a pattern. “So that tower”—she pointed behind me, back towards the littlemouth cave—“is probably Varu, unless it stops before it reaches the clouds. The next one, where Moc and Ciel are, might be Naza. Or something close by. Those are good, stable towers.” Bridge artifexes knew the towers nearest where they worked, but were fascinated by all of them. And Ceetcee was a good bridge artifex. “If we need to shelter down here for a long time, this is a good place to do it.”

She glanced back towards the cave, then returned her attention to the map. I could guess her thoughts:
If Beliak recovers.

During the cold, quiet night, each of us had probably thought about staying below. I certainly had. It wasn't a pleasant idea. When could we return to the city? The question was more pressing for Ceetcee. Every day below the clouds meant she drew closer to the days she'd be too gravid to fly. I hadn't thought past staying alive each moment and keeping everyone else alive too. But she had. Returning meant risk. Staying, too.

Chagrin shook me that I hadn't thought it through. “So once we know where we are, we can try to fly close to a friendly tower, like Densira or Mondarath, and send Maalik up?”

She nodded, glad I'd seen where she was going. “He could take a message to the northwest towers.” It was a good idea. Practical, no-nonsense. That was Ceetcee, even in the clouds.