Wing Magic

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  WE KEEP WHAT WE CATCH LITTLE BEE AND WE CAUGHT YOU.

  Caught? I couldn’t afford to be caught right now. I had people depending on me. I turned around the tower base, but there was nothing here but glowing light and a twisting, moving, staircase of vines that climbed so high up the tower wall that it twisted into darkness.

  I was trapped.

  WE TAKE WHAT YOU LOVE, BUZZING BEE. AND YOU LOVE TO BE FREE.

  Everyone loved being free.

  YOU LOVE IT MORE.

  I shivered and then turned that into a spasm of shaking as I tried to dislodge the feeling of the voice in my mind – but it would not go. Was it really possible that it was somehow the spirit of the Forbidding?

  SSSEE WHAT WE MEAN? WE ARE TANGLED IN YOU – ROOTED IN YOUR HEART WHERE THERE IS ALREADY A TANGLE OF USSS SEEDED.

  I felt like I might be ill. My head was spinning.

  A tangle of what?

  WHAT YOU CALL THE FORBIDDING. IT IS IN YOUR HEART. IT LURKSSS WHERE IT CAN NOT BE DESTROYED. BECAUSSSE TO DESTROY USSS ISSS TO DESTROY YOU.

  A wave of nausea washed over me. I had better not have some of that in me. I couldn’t stomach the thought. It was all I could do to pull myself together enough to talk to my own spirit. Remember, Aella, just because a creepy voice says something, doesn’t mean it’s true.

  YOU ARE ALREADY OUR SSSLAVESS. ALL THAT REMAINSS ISS TO DECIDE HOW TO MAKE YOU DANCCCE.

  “I was told you’d give me my desire,” I said boldly. Enough of this nonsense. Enough of this talk.

  IT’S DESSIRESS YOU WANT? THEN CLIMB THE SSTAIRSSS.

  I swallowed, looking at the moving stairs. There was no rail, they merely followed the curve of the tower wall, made entirely of tangle strands. It would be like walking up a staircase of Forbidding. You’d have to be crazy to do it.

  CRAZY OR NOTHING. CLIMB OR ROT.

  I looked around the base of the tower.

  THERE IS NO WAY OUT EXCEPT UP.

  I’d come this far. I could do the rest, right?

  Skies, bear me upward to your embrace. Let me know your depths and eddies. Fill me with the courage of the west wind and the light spirit of the laughing zephyr.

  I reached into my re-ordered self – the me who had been folded and kneaded the last time I encountered old magic. There was a resonance in me as if I recognized all of this. It calmed me, somehow, making me feel as though I could manage what came next. It didn’t show me any visions, though. Maybe in this place, that wasn’t possible.

  My whole body was shaking as I took the first step, despite my new courage. My foot settled onto something solid and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Too soon. The tangled step moved to cup my foot, adjusting itself just a little higher. My stomach dropped and I reached for the wall to steady myself. The vines making the wall reached back, tangling around my hand. I cried out and pulled my hand back losing my balance and nearly falling off the step.

  CLIMB.

  Great. Just great. I either had to accept that the Forbidding was going to interact with me as I climbed, or I had to leave emptyhanded.

  THERE ISSS NO LEAVING. YET.

  And those stairs were not safe.

  SSSAFETY. THE EVER PRESSSENT ENEMY OF ADVENTURE. ONE CANNOT BE FREE AND ALSO SSAFE. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, HONEY BEE?

  That was easy. I thought of Juste holding me captive, threatening me with forced marriage and the removal of my tongue. The snake in my mind seemed to like the memory, hissing with pleasure as I replayed it in my mind.

  “Freedom,” I said aloud. “I’d rather make my own bad choices and suffer for them than suffer for choices thrust on to me.”

  Skies preserve me. I was reaching now with every ounce of hope that I had.

  A BEE BUZZING AGAINST THE GLASS. A FUTILE WISSSSH.

  “It’s not futile. We’re made of our choices. There has to be freedom to be human at all.”

  THEN CLIMB.

  I took another step, gritting my teeth with determination as I climbed. One more. I flung my arms out to the side, swaying as I tried to keep my balance on steps that swayed with me.

  Skies have mercy. Stars have mercy.

  As I climbed, I felt the snake in my mind ... sifting ... rummaging somehow in my mind as it hissed. I did not like this. I wasn’t sure I believed it was some kind of extension of the Forbidding, but I definitely didn’t like it.

  YOU DON’T THINK WE ARE YOUR PRECIOUS ENEMY? YOU THINK WE ARE LIMITED TO MINDLESS CLAWING ALONG THE GROUND? AND YET YOU HAVE TAKEN OUR PATHS UNDER THE GROUND.

  I shivered. I thought those paths were from the snake people, not the Forbidding.

  STOLEN FROM US. BUT WE REACH FARTHER THAN YOU CAN GUESS. WE REFORM THE EARTH. WE TAKE BACK WHAT IS OURS.

  Pain shot through my mind and I stumbled, catching myself against the tangled wall. Little tendrils shot out, stabilizing me and for the first time, I didn’t recoil in horror. I was too busy trying to keep my head as images burst across my mind. It was like when the snake people put me in their temple – but worse.

  THAT IS A TINY TENDRIL OF US, TOO. BUT WE ARE STRONGER HERE. THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLACE HAVE ACCOMMODATED TO US. THEY ADAPT AND LEARN. WE LIKE THAT.

  I barely heard the voice, I was so caught up in the visions crashing over me. I saw images of people fighting off the tangle of the Forbidding. People dressed in clothing I couldn’t identify. People with complexions and hair I’d never seen before. Weapons I’d never seen before. Perhaps they were places that the Winged Empire had never found, filled with strange people fighting our same battle against the Forbidding. It was almost comforting to think of others fighting the same battle.

  Until I saw a bright bird flying over the tangle of Forbidding as it crawled across the sea. A pair of Imperial Tern ships raced across the waves as a huge bluish-white raven plunged toward the mass of Forbidding, talons outstretched, a scream ripping from its throat. It ripped at the snatching tangles, keeping the Forbidding from catching the stern of the slower ship. On the deck, a man in a short Wing coat braced himself on the rail, teeth clenched, and hands splayed outward.

  Had the Forbidding crossed the sea? Was it attacking ships as they sailed? My heart clenched in my chest and in my mind the tendril of Forbidding hissed happily.

  I took another step upward and I was rocked in place as a new image scored a path through my mind – the image of hundreds of Claws, fighting and slashing along a line of turf as a roiling mass of Forbidding crept across the land. The Claws were giving ground, their blue and white uniforms muddy and torn, eyes wild.

  My heart seized in my throat. That was not Far Stones. It was not our rocky land. It was a place rich and verdant, thick with plants whose leaves were larger than I was. The mainland. The continent.

  And if the Forbidding was attacking there. And attacking in the sea. And attacking peoples I’d never even heard stories of before. Then what could stop it?

  NOTHING.

  That – perhaps – was true.

  “And where do you come from, creeping Forbidding?” I whispered as I mounted another step. “And where are you going.”

  THE HEARTS OF MAN.

  “And what will you do when all hearts are yours?”

  BREATHE.

  Well, that wasn’t creepy at all. Not at all.

  “What are you?”

  DON’T YOU KNOW YET?

  I didn’t know. But I had an idea. I had a vague, unformed idea in my mind of ancient magic, not tuned to birds or bees or snakes in particular, but reaching out and capturing people, bending and folding them to see what they were made of and planting little seeds in them. A magic with a curious mind.

  A thought washed over me and I clamped it down hard. I didn’t dare let myself dwell on anything that might defeat the Forbidding – not here where it could read my mind.

  YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME. ALL RACESS PASS AWAY AND ARE REBORN NEW AND THEN THOSE PASSS TOO. BUT THE SSSNAKE ISSS ENDLESSS.

  That was a lot of hissing for me. I stumbled up ano
ther stair. The shadows were closing in now, thicker and deeper. But I was playing by the rules and I could only hope that the Forbidding was playing by them, too.

  YOU WILL GET YOUR DESIRE. WILL IT BE WHAT YOU THINK IT IS?

  The general. I was here for the general.

  IS THAT WHERE YOUR HEART IS? TRULY?

  “Where is your heart?” I asked, flipping it around, refusing to let that terrible entity sift any further through my mind.

  DEEP IN THE DARK, DOWN IN THE STONE,

  FOLLOW THE EARTHBEAT AND FIND MY HOME.

  It seemed to love poetry. Which was a strange quirk for a mindless force.

  WE ARE NEITHER MINDLESS NOR A FORCE. KNOW US AND LIVE.

  I shuddered at the same moment that my head smacked into something above me. I reached up and pushed against something solid, but the tendrils of Forbidding pushed, too, and the trapdoor swung upward.

  I couldn’t stop the burst of hope that filled me.

  I slid the bolt back and opened the trap door.

  But I lost my mental focus as I lifted it and accidentally thought of Osprey. Of how I needed to get him untethered from Juste before I could fight the Forbidding properly.

  Laughter echoed in my mind.

  HE’S TIED UP BY HIS OWN SEED OF FORBIDDING IN HIS HEART. JUST AS ALL HUMANS ARE. THERE IS NO UNTANGLING WHAT HAS BEEN TIED.

  But that wasn’t true, was it? I’d untangled things before.

  I pulled myself the last step up to through the trap door to the top of the tower and in my mind, I was seeing fire – all the fires I’d set at the heart of trees and beasts – the fires that stopped the Forbidding. There were ways to stop it – if only I dared.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I stumbled up into the light and gasped. I was face-to-face with a man who had once been powerful and very tall. Now, he was stooped and gaunt. He gaped at me, his beard – long and bedraggled – blew in the breeze. The trapdoor opened onto a slick floor and a cage. Both floor and cage were made of something tangled and as the tangle turned from floor into walls, it became translucent. There were gaps in the weaving, but none of them were big enough for me to pass, never mind the man.

  I staggered when I took in the view around the tower. I could see the whole city. Every bit of it. We were so high above the broken top of the visible tower that my knees shook. Every single person in the city should have been able to see this tower. And yet it was utterly hidden from view.

  “The blue coats take back the city. They broke the rebels with a Veturian Maneuver. I’ve tried that one myself,” the man said through chapped lips, his voice rusty and squeaking. He coughed and when he spoke again it was clear. “It was a valiant effort by the people here. Valiant. I’ve watched them fall all day. One by one. They were close to turning the tide before the ships landed. But Veturian always works on a rebellion.”

  He gestured and I gasped at the sight of Juste’s ships in the harbor. There were more of them than I thought could have arrived from Karkatua. He couldn’t have received reinforcements already, could he?

  Victore was watching them, more intent on what went on below than on me – his would-be savior.

  “Are you Victore?” I asked cautiously.

  “Victore of House Raven,” he said, his words heavy with emotions and memories that layered to make them opaque.

  There was a flurry of wings above us and then two ravens darted between the bars and landed – one on his right shoulder and the other on the top of his balding head. “Too narrow for me to leap and end my torment, but not too narrow for Sorrow and Trouble.”

  He reached up and stroked the birds affectionately. One of the two dropped something in his palm. I realized – in horror – that it was a small mouse. He popped it into his mouth and I barely swallowed down my bile as he chewed it, crunching the bones, and swallowing the entire mouse before speaking again.

  “They can bring some for you, too. Sorrow is an excellent hunter. And I will be glad for the company, prisoners though we are.”

  My stomach was still turning. I fought down nausea. “They feed you?”

  “And they bring me drink, too, don’t you, Trouble?” He patted the head of the raven on his head.

  It took me a moment to shake myself back to why I was here.

  “I’m here to free you. We need to go – before the tower catches fire.”

  He walked to the edge and peered down. “The smoke will be a problem. Hard to breathe. Hard for the ravens to find food.”

  “We need to go,” I repeated. Should I catch his hand in mine and compel him? I was worried that he would react poorly to that. He was keeping his distance.

  “It won’t burn. This tower isn’t of the world. Is but isn’t. Real but unreal. Alive but dead.”

  “Even if it doesn’t burn, our window is closing.”

  “Many years I have survived here on this nest above the world with only my manifestations to share my cell, isn’t that right Sorrow and Trouble,” he mused, looking affectionately at his manifestations.

  “And now those years are over.”

  “There is no way out.” His voice sounded hollow. “And no way to leap to your death. Put a little piece of your mind away somewhere safe and let the rest go mad.”

  Was he mad?

  He began to hum to himself.

  This was the worst prison rescue ever. Frustrated, I turned to the trapdoor to show him the way out and realized it was closed and hidden now – under the tangle of Forbidding that made the floor of this tower. I hurried over to it and when I reached for the trapdoor the tangles of Forbidding reached up and grasped my hand.

  IS THIS YOUR DESIRE? DESIRES COME AT A COST.

  The voice was still there. I should not feel comforted by that, but I was.

  “Come on, Victore. We need to flee while we can.”

  “There’s nowhere to flee to. It crept up over the hills, swallowing us up one by one. There was nowhere to flee to. It was already in our hearts.”

  That was far too close to what the Forbidding had told me – if the mind in this tower really was the Forbidding.

  “I fought long and hard. Led my people. But the Forbidding takes no prisoners. Once it was benign – or perhaps even good – there are still places where it folds that goodness into you. Oh, I’ve felt that. I felt it. But this tower is not one of those places. This tower has felt the creeping corruption turn it to evil. It was evil when I was placed here and has only grown more so. No longer do I lead men. These days, I’m lucky to lead my own thoughts.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said firmly. “The men need you to lead them again.”

  His head whipped around to me, eyes bright and haunted. “It was in the night as I slept that someone slipped in. Put a sack over my head. Bound my mouth and hands. Dragged me from my rooms.”

  “Please,” I pled. “You can tell all of it to me as we flee. But we need to go now!”

  “I never saw faces. Never saw hands. Never saw anything. Never heard anything. And when I finally tore off my bonds, I was here. Who betrayed me, little bird?” His eyes were hard on mine. “Who ripped me from the earth and left me in this nest?”

  “We can find out. We can find out all of it – but not if we stay here.” I was surprised to realize tears were pricking my eyes.

  “There, there, little girl.”

  He took a step toward me and a stab of fear shot down my spine. I wanted him to follow me, but he followed like someone about to spring.

  I reached for the trapdoor and the floor reached for me.

  A sound of terror broke through his lips, his eyes wide as he watched the Forbidding greet me.

  “It’s better than staying here forever, don’t you think?” I coaxed, but I wasn’t looking at him, I was looking at the tentacles moving from the trapdoor handle to my hand. They tangled around my wrist and then with a snick the trapdoor opened, and the golden darkness below yawned wide.

  I reached back and firmly took Victore’s hand. He tried to s
natch it away but after a heartbeat, it went limp and his head bowed down.

  “You take me to my death. You come at last to do their bidding and trap my soul.”

  “I’m rescuing you,” I reminded him, but he only shook his head.

  He needed something more, I could see it in the hunch of his shoulders.

  “Come to me, bees,” I whispered.

  I opened my palm and held it under his face so his bowed head could see as I breathed out and let out one of my bees. Just one. He danced across my palm manically.

  Victore’s head snapped up and his brown eyes looked into mine – piercing and filled with a tangle of emotions I couldn’t place.

  “A bee. She holds a bee.”

  “Come with me,” I urged, taking a step down into the embrace of the Forbidding. I felt hot all over but I couldn’t concentrate on that.

  He followed me, his eyes locked onto my bee.

  Could he still lead an army like this? He seemed to know what was happening below him, but he leapt from shadows. And he ate mice whole. I clenched my jaw, trying to avoid remembering that. I didn’t want to vomit. Whether he could or not, I was committed to this now, and leaving him here to continue existing like this was unthinkable. I ignored the burning feeling in my hands and head and drew him onward.

  I led him down the moving, reaching stairs, holding his hand even as he quivered and shuddered behind me. He must think I was leading him into the depths of hell, but still, he followed, his eyes never wavering from my bee. His ravens came with us, still perched on his head and shoulder like grim guardians of his hollow mind.

  We reached the bottom step and the voice of the Forbidding ripped through me.

  LAY BARE YOUR DESIRE,

  GREAT OR SMALL,

  GAIN IT TWICE.

  BURN ON OUR PYRE

  BRIGHT AND HOT,

  SOUL MADE NAUGHT.

  I’d already laid bare my desire – to save the general. Heat flared in me – so hot and bright now that I could barely breathe.

  WHAT’S REALLY YOUR DESIRE?

  I froze, my foot on the last step. Of course, freeing the general was my desire. I’d been very clear. Was the Forbidding changing its mind now?